Living by Vow

by Shohaku Okumura

  Unlike the Chinese, Indian Buddhists didn’t believe that emptiness is the source of form. They believed that form is emptiness and emptiness is form but not that emptiness is the source of form. In this poem, we can see a mixture of Indian and Chinese philosophy. Some modern Buddhist scholars conclude that because Zen is a mixture of Chinese and Indian thought, it is not true Buddhism. I think the situation is more complex. Chinese Buddhism is Buddhism influenced by Chinese culture. Japanese Buddhism is Buddhism influenced by Japanese culture. We could also say that Japanese Buddhism is Japanese culture influenced by Buddhism. In the same way, we can say that Chinese Buddhism is Chinese culture influenced by Buddhism. We can look at either from two different directions. We can think of American Buddhism as American culture influenced by Buddhism or as Buddhism influenced by American culture. To judge a practice as true Buddhism or not based on the national and cultural background of the practitioner’s understanding does not make much sense to me. We need to find our own expression of the dharma, of reality. This is a simple but at the same time complex and interesting reality.

  Another example of this contrast between Indian and Chinese thought is the “two truths” in Nāgārjuna’s teaching versus the “three truths” in the philosophy of Tientai Zhiyi (Tendai Chigi, 538–597), the most important master in the Chinese Tientai (Tendai) school. To review, Nāgārjuna’s two truths are absolute truth and conventional truth. In chapter 24 of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, “Examination of the Fourfold Noble Truth,” Nāgārjuna said:

  The teaching of the Dharma by the various Buddhas is based on the two truths, namely, the relative (worldly) truth and the absolute (supreme) truth. Those who do not know the distinction between the two truths cannot understand the profound nature of the Buddha’s teaching. Without relying on everyday common practice (i.e., relative truths), the absolute truth cannot be expressed. Without approaching the absolute truth, nirvana cannot be attained. We declare that whatever is relational origination is śūnyatā (emptiness). It is a provisional name (i.e., thought construction) for the mutuality (of being) and indeed, it is the middle path (24:8–10).109

  In these passages, according to Hajime Nakamura, a Japanese Buddhist scholar, Nāgārjuna only says that relational (interdependent) origination, śūnyatā (emptiness), provisional names, and the middle path are all the same thing.

  In his interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s passages, Zhiyi creates three truths. The first is the conventional truth of all beings as provisional names, the second is the truth of śūnyatā (emptiness), and the third is the truth of the middle. First we need to negate the conventional truth and see emptiness. Next, we need to negate śūnyatā and enter the truth of the middle, because śūnyatā is also a provisional name. To be free from provisional names including śūnyatā is the truth of the middle. In this interpretation, provisional names and śūnyatā oppose each other and yet are the same. Freedom from and transcendence of both is the truth of the middle. To me, Zhiyi’s interpretation of the three truths and Shitou’s saying the root (unity) and twigs (difference) must return to the source show the same pattern of Chinese thought.

  The symbol of yin and yang echoes this pattern. Yin (black) and yang (white) oppose each other, and yet yin is included in yang and vice versa. The opposite movements of each are integrated into one circle. This circle is called the “great ultimate” (Chi., taiji; Jap., taikyoku). It is the source in “Sandōkai.”

  “Sandōkai” as a Buddhist Text

  When we read “Sandōkai” as a Buddhist text, we need to understand it from a Buddhist rather than Taoist perspective. Forms are not derived from emptiness. Unity does not give birth to difference. Five fingers are not born from one hand. Rather, one hand and five fingers are exactly the same thing.

  When Shitou says, “‘Noble’ and ‘base’ are only manners of speaking,” he is referring to buddhas as noble and other humans as base. We can substitute any other dichotomy—enlightenment and delusion, or universality and individuality—for noble and base. He refers here to our dualistic way of thinking and expression as “only manners of speaking.” The reality before thought or explanation can only be experienced. We cannot discuss it. As soon as we try, we have already missed it. This is an important point. We can talk about our life or our zazen; but when we talk about our life, our life itself is already somewhere else. When we talk about zazen, zazen itself is somewhere else. So when we sit zazen, we should forget about what zazen is, because we are already doing it. When we think about zazen, we are not doing it; we are thinking. When we sit, we should forget what we are doing. We should forget what zazen is and just sit. That is the meaning of “just sit” or shikantaza.

  How Avalokiteśvara Works with Thousands of Eyes and Hands

  There is a koan that illustrates this relationship between independence and interdependence. It is a question and answer between Yunyan Tansheng and Daowu Yuanzhi (Dōgo Enchi, 769–835).110 The brothers Yunyan and Daowu were disciples of Yaoshan Weiyan, who was one of Shitou’s disciples. Yunyan was the younger brother and became a monk at an early age. Daowu was an official and became a monk twenty years later. Daowu attained the Way quickly, while Yunyan was never enlightened. Yunyan’s main disciple was Dongshan, the founder of the Caodong (Sōtō) school in China. The relationship between two brothers, actual as well as dharma brothers, was very interesting.

  Master Yunyan asked Daowu, “How does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion use his manifold hands and eyes?” The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion is Avalokiteśvara or Kanzeon Bosatsu. He is a symbol of the Buddha’s compassion. Some statues of Avalokiteśvara have a thousand hands and a thousand eyes, one on each hand. Eyes are a symbol of wisdom. So this bodhisattva has many eyes to see the differences between beings and many hands to save them. Yunyan’s question is, how does Avalokiteśvara use so many hands and eyes?

  Daowu replied, “It’s like a man reaching behind himself in the night searching for a pillow.” Sometimes in the night we lose our pillow, and have to find it in the darkness. Before electricity the night was really dark. Somehow we can find the pillow even though we cannot see it with our eyes. In a way our whole body is our eyes.

  Yunyan said, “I understand.”

  “What do you understand?” Daowu asked.

  Yunyan answered, “There are a thousand eyes all over the body.”

  Daowu said “That’s very good, but you express only 80 or 90 percent of it.” He was saying that Yunyan’s understanding was not yet perfect. This is a very important point in our lineage. If you really become perfect, there is nothing more to do. Our understanding should always be 80 or 90 percent, and we need to keep inquiring.

  Yunyan said, “That’s my answer, how about you, elder brother?” Daowu replied, “The whole body is hands and eyes.” In the chapter on the Heart Sutra I explained that one of the points of this koan is whether Yunyan’s and Daowu’s expressions are exactly the same or not. If we think they are different, we could interpret them as follows. Yunyan said there are a thousand eyes all over the body, and Daowu said the whole body is hands and eyes. In the original Chinese only two characters are different, hen and tsū, and they both mean “whole” or “entire.” It might seem as though Yunyan and Daowu are saying the same thing. But hen means that there are hands and eyes all over the body, and in Daowu’s expression, tsū means this whole body functions as eyes and hands. It’s a subtle difference, but Daowu’s statement is much more dynamic. He refers to an action or activity. Yunyan’s expression is more static.

  Daowu is saying that our practice, not just our zazen, but our whole life, should be lived like Avalokiteśvara. We have only two hands and eyes, and yet when we do something our whole body should become eyes. When we see something, for instance a painting in a museum, our whole body should become our eyes. We appreciate the painting with the whole body and mind, not just our eyes. When we eat, we taste not only with our tongue but with our whole body. The color and shape of food is important. The circumstances or
environment of the place where we eat is also important. The taste of food depends very much on the situation. When we do something we do it with our whole body. The eye is the eye. It really is independent. Yet when we actually do something, we do it with our whole body and mind. All individual sense organs and parts of our body work together as one body and mind, as one person. This is a very practical meaning of emptiness. Everything works together to create each situation. It is our practice to awaken to this entire reality, which includes the self and all beings, creating together.

  RIGHT IN LIGHT THERE IS DARKNESS

  Right in light there is darkness, but don’t confront it as darkness;

  Right in darkness there is light, but don’t see it as light.

  Light and dark are relative to one another

  Like forward and backward steps.

  Light and Darkness Interpenetrate

  In the beginning of “Sandōkai,” Shitou says, “The spiritual source shines clearly in the light; the branching streams flow in the darkness.” This is the way he expresses the interpenetration of difference and unity, ji and ri, the absolute truth and relative truth. Here he uses light and darkness again to describe the attitude we should use to encounter and see the interpenetrating reality.

  “Right in light there is darkness, but …” This translation has “but,” but I think “therefore” is better: “therefore don’t confront it as darkness.” Light and darkness are always together. We cannot understand our life through only one aspect. We often see darkness, unity, or non-discrimination as enlightenment and discrimination as delusion. From this perspective, enlightenment means to give up light, differentiation, and discrimination and to live in the realm of nondiscrimination. Shitou conveys a more complex understanding. In the phrase “light and dark,” light refers to samsara and dark to nirvana or nondiscrimination. But these are inseparable aspects of reality. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, our practice is not to escape samsara for nirvana. Nirvana is within samsara, which is within nirvana. We cannot make this life all nirvana or all samsara because samsara and nirvana always exist together. Right in samsara there is nirvana.

  The next sentence repeats the same idea. “Right in darkness there is light, therefore don’t see it as light.” We cannot define this light using only one concept. Delusion and enlightenment always exist together. Delusion is a product of our mind. The fact that our brain has the power to produce delusion is reality. We cannot remove this capability from our brain. Somehow we must live with our delusions as the reality of our life. But if we forget that our delusions are created by our own minds and mistake them for reality, then we are completely caught and our life becomes a mess. We can’t see where to go. We have to find a way to live with delusion without being pulled around by it.

  Shitou continues, “Light and dark are relative to one another like forward and backward steps.” There is no light without darkness and no darkness without light. But what do forward and backward steps mean? In walking, when the right foot is forward, the left foot is backward. When the right foot is backward, the left foot is forward. In this sense, light and darkness are like right and left feet. They are always together but sometimes we see only light and sometimes only darkness. Sometimes darkness is forward, sometimes light. But light and darkness are always together just like our feet when we are walking.

  Darkness Is Negative, Light Is Positive

  There are two meanings each for light and darkness. We can combine them to make three different pairs of meanings. Darkness is usually used in a negative sense, as ignorance, absence of discrimination, lack of intellection, or the inability to distinguish good from evil. Without knowledge we cannot understand what is happening. This meaning of darkness is negative because it’s defined as a lack of discrimination. One meaning of light is the opposite of this first meaning of darkness; light can mean intellection. We study how to analyze, categorize, and conceptualize things. In this way we can see things outside ourselves in more detail, more clearly. This way of interacting with the things around us is called rationalism. The use of reason to understand our world is the original English meaning of enlightenment. In eighteenth-century Europe enlightenment emphasized the accumulation of knowledge. Our suffering is caused by ignorance, so we must study more and use our reason. This is still an underlying assumption in education, not only in the West but also in the rest of the world.

  Light Is Negative, Darkness Is Positive

  The first meaning of light is the use of our intellect to see things not only outside of ourselves but inside as well. We call this discrimination. Abhidharma was a Buddhist form of rationalism, an attempt to understand things through reason and analysis. Abhidharma was the mainstream of Buddhist philosophy before Mahāyāna. The Abhidharma text Abhidharmakośa bhāṣya categorized all things into seventy-five dharmas or elements. These philosophers believed that there is no ātman or ego, no body and mind beyond a collection of elements, and that self has no substance. That’s the meaning of emptiness or selflessness. They believed that the seventy-five elements really did exist and that all beings are collections of those seventy-five elements. They wrote clear definitions of each element. The five skandhas is another way to analyze a being into categories.

  Mahāyāna Buddhism transcends this rationalism and conceptualization with the philosophy of emptiness. Mahāyāna Buddhism taught that the elements themselves are without substance, that they are empty. That is the meaning of the statement that the five skandhas are empty. Even the fundamental elements are empty. This means that eye, ear, nose, and tongue don’t function separately, but only as a whole. They are all connected with each other. That is one meaning of emptiness. Nothing can exist as an independent entity and everything functions as part of a larger system. This perspective is called nondiscriminating mind or nondiscriminating wisdom. It is also referred to as darkness in this poem.

  Going Beyond Negative and Positive

  If darkness as lack of discrimination or intellection and light as rational discrimination are paired, darkness is negative and light is positive. However, we can also make a second pair with light as negative (discrimination from a limited view) and darkness as positive (a nondiscriminatory way of seeing).

  In Buddhism we commonly think that nondiscrimination is the answer; that we should try to set aside discrimination and enter the realm of nondiscrimination, which is enlightenment. That’s true but it’s not the end of the story. There is another meaning of light called the Buddha’s wisdom or “later obtained discriminating wisdom,” which is also based on nondiscrimination. In our daily lives we have to discriminate to practice and to help others. In this case, nondiscrimination means nonattachment. This light is called prajñā and is described in the Heart Sutra as the bright mantra. It’s very important that we go beyond nondiscrimination. In Zen there are some people who attain so-called enlightenment and stay in a condition of nondiscrimination. Sometimes such people cling to that condition with a kind of greed. These practitioners are called an shō no zenji. An means “darkness” and shō is “enlightenment.” So the phrase means “enlightenment in darkness,” a negative condition. Buddhism and our life itself have many dimensions. We should not stagnate in one condition. In this poem, it appears that Shitou discusses only the relationship between light and darkness, between differentiation and nondifferentiation. But the insight Shitou uses to describe the relationship between light and darkness is an example of the Buddha’s wisdom, this third meaning of light. He shows us that differentiation between darkness and light is just another kind of discrimination. He discriminates between these two and then integrates them. This is a very practical wisdom, free from both discrimination and nondiscrimination. It is a more natural function of our life.

  BOX AND COVER JOINING

  All things have their function—

  It is a matter of use in the appropriate situation.

  Phenomena exist like box and cover joining;

  Principle accords like arrow points meeting.<
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  Each Thing Has Its Own Place and Function

  “All things have their function.” Everything and everybody has a unique function. We all have different capabilities, talents, characteristics, personalities, bodies, and languages. All things have a function appropriate to some situation. The word in Japanese for “appropriate situation” is sho, meaning “place.” Each one of us has to find the best place to use this body and mind. This unique body and mind exists as an intersection of difference and unity. That is the place where we can create our own unique way of life. That is our practice. Our practice doesn’t mean we have to make ourselves into a particular shape. We are not like cars with certain standard shapes and qualities. We have a responsibility to accept this unique body and mind and put it to use. To fulfill the potential of this body and mind, we have to find an appropriate situation and embrace it as our own life, as our own work.