Fuyō Dōkai and the Fundamental

Keizan's commentary

The teacher's personal name was Daokai. From childhood he delighted in quiet and lived secluded on Mount Yiyang. Later he traveled to the capital and entered his name at Shutai Monastery. He passed an examination on the Lotus Sūtra and received ordination. He visited Tōsu at Haihui and asked the question beginning, “The words and phrases of buddhas and ancestors . . .” The encounter continued until the teacher immediately awakened. He bowed twice and started to leave. Tōsu said, “Come back a moment, ācārya.” The teacher did not look back. Tōsu said, “You have reached the ground of no doubt.” The teacher immediately covered his ears with his hands.⁴ Later the teacher served as cook. Tōsu said, “Managing the kitchen duties is not easy.” The teacher said, “I would not presume to say so.” Tōsu asked, “Do you cook porridge, or do you steam rice?” The teacher said, “The hired workers wash the rice and light the fire. The postulants cook the porridge and steam the rice.” Tōsu asked, “What do you do?” The teacher said, “In his compassion, the reverend lets him remain idle.”⁵ One day the teacher attended Tōsu while he walked through the vegetable garden. Tōsu passed his staff to him. The teacher took it and followed. Tōsu said, “This is just as it should be.” The teacher said, “Carrying the reverend's shoes and bearing his staff would not be beyond my part.” Tōsu said, “There is a fellow traveler.” The teacher said, “That person does not receive commands.” Tōsu let the matter rest. That evening he asked the teacher, “Our conversation this morning was not finished.” The teacher said, “Please, Reverend, bring it up.” Tōsu said, “At the hare hour the sun is born; at the dog hour the moon is born.” The teacher immediately brought a lamp and lit it. Tōsu said, “Your coming up and going down are never in vain.” The teacher said, “At the reverend's side it is fitting to be like this.” Tōsu said, “In whose house are there no boy servants and maidservants?” The teacher said, “The reverend is advanced in years. You cannot be without them.” Tōsu said, “How did you become so attentive?” The teacher said, “I have a part in repaying kindness.”⁶ In this way he clarified that one decisive matter with minute and continuous care. At first, when he asked, “The words and phrases of buddhas and ancestors are like everyday tea and rice; apart from these is there another way of guiding people?” he seemed to be presenting his own understanding: is there something more that buddhas and ancestors show, apart from ordinary daily conduct? Tōsu replied, “Tell me: when the reigning emperor issues an edict, must he still borrow the authority of Yao, Shun, Yu, or Tang?” When the present sovereign issues an order, he does not ultimately borrow the authority of ancient kings Yao or Shun. When the one person possesses blessing, the ten thousand people naturally receive it. In the same way, even if old Śākyamuni appeared in the world and Great Master Bodhidharma were present, no person could borrow another's power. One must simply personally assent and personally verify, and accord with it in some measure.⁷ If you explain the principle and add flavor to it, some part still looks toward another. You have not escaped a direction of approach. Therefore, as the teacher was about to advance a word, Tōsu struck his mouth with the whisk. To show that from the beginning this is complete and lacks nothing, Tōsu said, “From the moment you first aroused the intention, you already deserved thirty blows.” This was not a certification. Once you arouse the intention and come seeking—asking, “What kind of thing is mind? What thing is buddha?”—you have already turned against yourself and faced another. Even if you yourself can explain that the whole body has appeared and is naturally clear; even if you speak of mind, nature, Zen, or the way—all of it fails to escape a direction of approach. If there is any directed approach, white clouds already stretch ten thousand miles. You have long been lost to yourself. How could only thirty blows be enough? Even if you were struck for a thousand births and ten thousand kalpas, it would be difficult to escape the offense.⁸ Therefore at the words he immediately awakened, bowed twice, and left without turning his head. When asked, “Have you reached the ground of no doubt?” why should there be some further place called the ground of no doubt to reach? Such a thought already puts ten thousand miles of barriers and mountains between. If the words and phrases of buddhas and ancestors touch one's ears, they have already soiled the ears. Even if washed clean for a thousand births and ten thousand kalpas, they would be difficult to purify. Therefore he covered his ears with his hands and did not admit a single word.⁹ Because he saw this place in detail, when he was cook he said, “He lets him remain idle.” He is not the one who cooks the rice and is not the one who handles the vegetables. Carrying firewood and hauling water are all movements of postulants and hired workers; ultimately they do not belong to the cook's own part. The one who ties on the apron and cleans the pots seems to continue without interruption through the twelve periods, yet in the end there is no part where he puts down a hand and no principle by which he touches a thing. Therefore Daokai says, “Let him remain idle.”¹⁰ Although he had seen in this way, Tōsu wanted to bring him to maturity. When they entered the vegetable garden, Tōsu passed him the staff and the teacher took it and followed. Tōsu said, “This is just as it should be.” The staff was not something the reverend himself ought to carry. Tōsu made him know the one who carries no thing. The teacher had already seen it maturely. Therefore he said, “Carrying the reverend's shoes and bearing his staff would not be beyond my part.” Here he knew the place where the reverend moved his fingers in his sandals and raised the staff. Yet he still understood raising a hand and moving a foot as not beyond his own part. There remained something slightly doubtful. Testing him, Tōsu said, “There is a fellow traveler.” This is an old fellow who has lived together with you from the beginning, though you know neither his name nor his face. This is the fellow traveler. The teacher had seen this long before, so he said, “That person does not receive commands.” Still, there was a place he had not reached. Why? Even if one knows there is that person who does not accompany a raised hand or meet a moving foot, if one knows only that it is so, something remains doubtful. At that time Tōsu let the unfinished principle rest. That evening he asked, “Our conversation this morning was not finished.” The teacher already knew there was this one and did not think it doubtful. How could there be a place he had not reached? He said, “Please, Reverend, bring it up.” Tōsu showed him: “At the hare hour the sun is born; at the dog hour the moon is born.”¹¹ The breath of night has passed away. Stars shift and the moon grows dark. White snow lies across the blue mountain, still not revealed. Yet there is a sun that is born beyond the common herd. The sun's force sinks behind the western mountain. The myriad forms show no shadows; no traveler comes or goes; the head of the road cannot be distinguished. Yet there remains an affair that is not emptied out. Therefore the moon is born. Even if this ground is struck into one piece, mingled with no other thing and containing no view of otherness, it naturally has a numinous and incandescent place that immediately illuminates through darkness. Therefore the teacher at once brought a lamp and lit it. He had reached it minutely and seen it clearly. Tōsu therefore showed him, “Your coming up and going down are never in vain.” When one is intimate with this place, there truly is no idle time for practice throughout the twelve periods. Thus the teacher said, “At the reverend's side it is fitting to be like this.” Although his seeing was minute, he seemed to understand it as marvelous functioning. Tōsu therefore tested him again: “In whose house are there no boy servants and maidservants?” What household does not have servants it sends here and there? The teacher said, “The reverend is advanced in years. You cannot be without them.” There is already one who is ancient and venerable and does not mingle with worldly dust. Its body is wondrously bright and never separate. Therefore he says the aged reverend cannot be without him. His seeing in this way truly lacked nothing in precision. Hence Tōsu asked, “How did you become so attentive?” From vast kalpas until now, you have carried this one without being apart for even a moment and have received the power of its kindness for a long time. The great Mount Sumeru and the iron ring mountains cannot compare with this kindness. The four seas and nine provinces cannot match this virtue. Why? Sumeru, sun and moon, great seas, rivers—all pass away with time. The kindness of this old reverend is never subject to formation or decay. There is therefore no time when its favor is not received. To be born in vain and die in vain without once bowing before the honored face is to remain an unfilial person, long submerged in the sea of birth and death. If one is exact and barely succeeds in seeing it, the vast kindness of a thousand births and ten thousand kalpas is completely repaid at once. Thus the teacher said, “I have a part in repaying kindness.”¹² Because his seeing was so exact, after he became an abbot a monk asked him, “A Tatar-reed melody does not fall within the five notes. Its resonance emerges into the blue sky. Please, Master, play and sing it.” The teacher said: A wooden cock crows at midnight; An iron phoenix calls at dawn. The monk said, “Then one phrase of the song contains the resonance of a thousand ages, and the cloud-and-water monks filling the hall all know the music.” The teacher said: A tongueless child can continue the harmony.¹³ He had matured so completely that no blue mountain covered his eyes and no clear spring washed his ears. Seeing advantage or fame was like putting grit into the eye. Seeing color and hearing sound was like planting flowers on a stone. Therefore his feet never crossed the monastery gate. He vowed not to attend invited meals. He did not dislike others coming and did not dislike them leaving. The size of his assembly varied with circumstances. Each day he ate one bowl of porridge. When no porridge was made, he drank only rice water. At this point the Dongshan lineage principle flourished greatly. Because he saw intimately, upheld it, and did not go astray, he did not forget the earlier sages' entrustment and studied the ancient buddhas' household instructions in this way.¹⁴ Even so, he said: This mountain monk's conduct and work are worth nothing, yet I shamefully preside over a monastery. How could I sit consuming the permanent community's provisions and suddenly forget the earlier sages' charge? I have now ventured to gather the ancient people's models for serving as abbot. . . . Whenever this mountain monk comes to speak of the deeds of the ancient sages, I immediately feel there is no ground on which to place my body. I am ashamed that later people are weak.¹⁵ As for me, I have shamefully become a Dharma descendant in the ninth generation and presumptuously raise this house style. My conduct throughout the twelve periods is unfit to serve as a model for later people, and all the care I take within the four bodily comportments is twisted and indirect. With what face can I confront three or five cloud-robed monks and explain even a phrase or half a phrase? Shameful, shameful! Fearful, fearful! The former ancestors shine their light upon me; the earlier sages see in the dark. Even so, all you who study: fortunately you are distant descendants of Zen Master Fuyō Dōkai and already one family within Eihei's school. You should carefully clarify and distinguish the ground of mind and apply yourselves with minute care. Let there be no thought of fame or profit by so much as a hair, and no arrogant heart by so much as a dust mote. Intimately settle the art of the heart and carefully regulate bodily conduct. Arrive where one must arrive; exhaust what one must exhaust; complete the matter of a lifetime's study. Do not forget the charge entrusted by the former ancestors. Set your steps after the earlier sages and place your eyes among the ancient buddhas. Even in this latter age of declining conditions, you may have a part in seeing a tiger in the marketplace. There may be someone who finds gold beneath the hat.¹⁶ This is my most earnest prayer, my most earnest prayer. Now say: how will you bring up the encounter presented above?