The Empty Mirror

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “But what are you looking for?” the professor asked and stood still abruptly, forcing me to stop as well.

  “Well,” I said, “you know. Truth. Why it has all started, and what’s the good of it,” and I gestured vaguely about me.

  “Absolute truth,” the professor lectured patiently, “does not emerge from the study of philosophy. Philosophy is a science, and science means approaching truth. By engaging in experiments, by thinking logically, we try to get nearer to truth by determining probabilities. Then we draw conclusions. We say that this is more probable than that, because of this or that reason. But to really know something, to be quite sure of something, no.”

  “Then I am on the wrong road,” I said, “because I want to be quite sure. I want to be absolutely certain that life on earth serves a purpose, because as long as I am not certain I am not content and that’s putting it mildly. I sometimes get so depressed, and everything around and in me becomes so utterly hopeless, that there’s nothing I can do, except lie down and feel cramps in my stomach.”

  “Yes,” the professor said kindly. “Depression. A well-known phenomenon. Can lead to suicide. Most unpleasant.”

  “But how do I get rid of depression? Do you know?”

  “Yes,” the professor said and filled his pipe. “Manual therapy may help and psychoanalysis, of course, but if you ask me, most of it is useless for treating your sort of affliction. What you have is what all mystics have had, and the only way of solving your problem is to join a mystic training. Go to a monastery, find a master, an adept who has finished his training, and he’ll cure you or you’ll cure yourself.”

  He lit his pipe, shook my hand and strolled off, a file bulging with papers clasped under his arm.

  The monastery idea of the professor was later combined with what I thought I had learned from books on Buddhism, and the resulting force took me to the master in Kyoto, but the decision involved some time and trouble for the idea of a monastery didn’t appeal to me. The word “monastery” associated itself with “lifelong sentence.” If I had known that Zen monasteries only keep their monks for three years and that Zen masters will take lay disciples and don’t insist on robes and vows, I would have gone to Japan earlier. When the master accepted me as a disciple the master had made me promise that I would stay for eight months. I had now spent a year in the monastery.

  One beautiful summer afternoon, when I was enjoying myself chopping wood near the bathhouse, Han-san came to tell me that the master was waiting for me in his little house. This gave me a fright, for it was the first time the master called me. I saw him every day to “discuss” the koan, and sometimes he said something to me when he met me in the garden, but normal human contact had never been established, except perhaps once when I met him in town. I had been buying some clothes in a department store and on my way back I suddenly saw him in the street, in the middle of a crowd. He wore a simple brown robe like many Buddhist priests wear, and there was nothing spectacular about him. I meant to greet him by performing the formal temple bow (to stand dead still, bow from the waist, allow the hands to glide down below the knees, pause for a few moments at the lowest point, and come back slowly), but he shook his head as if to indicate that the customs of the temple were not applicable to life in the street.

  I asked him where he had been, not because I really wanted to know but because that’s the way one greets one’s fellows in Japan. “Morning sir, where have you been?” Whoever is addressed like that mumbles something, smiles and goes on. But the master answered my question in full. He explained in detail that he had just been to the dentist and pointed out where the dentist had his rooms. Then he opened his mouth, beckoned me to come closer, and pointed to a bleeding hole in his jaw. It had really hurt, he said. He would have trouble eating for a few days. And the worst was that he would have to go back next week, and probably lose another back tooth. I know everything about toothache and pulling and drilling so I could tell an interesting story as well. Then he wanted to know where I had been and I showed him the jeans and shirts I had just bought. If I hadn’t suddenly remembered that he was my teacher I would have invited him to have coffee with me. That meeting had taken place some months ago. Now I was being summoned, by Han-san, the official messenger of the monastery, to go and visit him officially.

  I combed my hair, washed my hands, put on a clean shirt, and hurried to his house. On the way I worried. It could be that he wanted to send me down, that my visits to the bathhouse, the weekends in Kobe, my dozing and dreaming in the meditation hall, and my regular simulation of throat ache to avoid the early morning meditation had finally given him cause to tell me that I might do better by trying somewhere else. In the porch I saw, next to the master’s and head monk’s sandals, the large shoes which belonged to Peter. Feeling oppressed I knelt down at the door of the master’s sitting room and wished my hosts a good afternoon.

  “Come in,” the master said, and pointed to where he wanted me to sit. There was no cushion for me. The head monk and Peter didn’t have cushions either. A Zen master gives a cushion to a disciple if the latter’s training has been completed and although the head monk had finished his koan study it didn’t mean that he had the master’s rank. He still had to show that he could use the insight which he had wrung from his koan study. Masters are never in a hurry, and a disciple, provided he is in the later stages of his training, isn’t in a hurry either. Everything comes, if you do your best. And if it doesn’t come, that’s all right too.

  “We have called you,” the master said, “because you have now spent a year with us. You were supposed to stay eight months and we added a few months on to that. You haven’t approached us, you have never told us you want to leave, so we may assume that you want to continue your training. We are now going to change your training somewhat.”

  He waited a few moments so that Peter could translate. After the misunderstanding which had taken place at the time of Rohatsu he apparently didn’t want to take risks.

  “In the temple,” the master continued, “you live among Japanese. We have a way of thinking and living different from what you are used to. Every man has, in essence, the Buddha nature, but the outward appearances differ. The head monk and I understand a little of what goes on inside you, and if we had nothing else to do, we could speed up your training a little. But even if we did have more time we would still be Japanese, and it is possible that you wouldn’t understand us because your associations differ. When I am talking about a white crane you may think of a stork, which isn’t always the same thing.”

  He paused again, and Peter translated while the head monk poured tea. The master held up his cup and we followed his example; we drank formally, elbows up so that the side sleeves of the master’s and the head monk’s robes hung down in an imposing manner, put the cups down neatly in front of us, and the master continued.

  “Up till now the head monk, who is one of my two most advanced disciples [Peter and the head monk smiled but the master gave them an ironic look and said that he used the word “advanced” because he hadn’t been able to think of a more appropriate word], has dealt with you. I want to make a change now. I want Peter to learn what it is like to work with a beginner. Perhaps he may learn something and it won’t do you any harm either. That’s why I don’t want you to stay in the monastery but rather move in with Peter. He will give you board and lodging and tell you what you have to pay him. And you, from your side, will have to behave as if you were his disciple although you’ll continue to be mine. I want to see you here every morning and also in the evenings, for meditation. For the rest Peter will have to decide on how you will spend your time and when you will have to meditate.”

  He looked at me, and the fierce black eyes stung me, but I didn’t look down. I didn’t lower my eyes during the daily interviews either, when he asked me what the answer to my koan was.

  “Think about it and let me know your answer, today or tomorrow.”

  “I don’t have to think about it,�
�� I said, “if Peter is agreeable I’ll do as you say.”

  “That’s all right then,” the master said. “But before you leave I want to tell you a short story. Perhaps you know it. Do you know the story about the gentleman who went to market and bought himself a devil?” I didn’t know the story and the master asked us to sit at ease; he lit a cigarette and allowed us to smoke as well. Peter fetched ashtrays and the head monk poured more tea and gave us each a sugar cake, from an ornamental box which an old lady from the neighborhood had presented to the master that morning.

  Some two hundred years ago a gentleman, who lived by himself in a large house not far away from here, saw a devil in a cage when he was visiting the market: a devil with a tail, yellow skin, and two long sharp fangs—he was about the size of a large dog. The devil sat quietly in a strong bamboo cage and gnawed on a bone. Next to the cage a merchant was watching the crowd and the gentleman asked him if the devil was for sale.

  “Of course,” the merchant said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. This is an excellent devil, strong, diligent and able to do anything you want him to do. He knows how to do carpentry, he is a good gardener, he can cook, mend clothes, read you stories, chop wood, and what he doesn’t know he can learn. And I don’t ask much for him, if you give me 50,000 yen (£50) he is yours.”

  The gentleman didn’t haggle and paid in cash. He wanted to take the devil home at once.

  “One moment,” the merchant said. “Because you haven’t bargained with me I want to tell you something. Look here, he is a devil of course, and devils are no good, you know that, don’t you?”

  “And you said he was an excellent devil,” the gentleman said indignantly.

  “Sure, sure,” the merchant said. “And that’s true as well. He is an excellent devil, but he is no good. He will always remain a devil. You have made a good buy, but only on the condition that you keep him going all the time. Every day you’ll have to give him a routine, from this time to that time you have to chop wood, and then you can start preparing the food, and after dinner you can rest for half an hour but then you really have to lie down and relax, and after that you can dig in the garden etc. etc. If he has time to spare, if he doesn’t know what to do, then he is dangerous.”

  “If that’s all,” the gentleman said, and took the devil home. And everything went beautifully. Every morning the gentleman called the devil who would kneel down obediently. The gentleman would dictate a daily program and the devil would start his chores and work right through the day. If he wasn’t working he rested or played, but whatever he did, he was always obeying orders.

  Then, after some months, the gentleman met an old friend in the city, and because of the sudden meeting and the thrill of seeing his old buddy again he forgot everything. He took the friend to a café and they started drinking sake, one little stone jar after another, and then they had a very good meal and more to drink, and they landed up in the willow quarter. The ladies kept the two friends busy and our gentleman woke up in a strange room, late the next morning. At first he didn’t know where he was but gradually it all came back to him and he remembered his devil. His friend had gone and he paid the bill to the women, who looked quite different now from what he remembered the previous evening, and rushed home. When he reached his garden he smelled burning and saw smoke coming from the kitchen. He stormed into his house and saw the devil sitting on the wooden kitchen floor. He had made an open fire and was roasting the neighbor’s child on a spit.

  The master knew how to tell a story, and the hairs on my head were prickly and hot. Peter told me later that he had heard the story before, but never as gruesomely as this time. When I said goodbye the master put on his friendly old man’s face and patted me on the shoulder. Actors, I thought bitterly. Three actors making fun of a bumpkin. Three cats and one mouse. While I am walking in this garden and trying to do my best they sit there and howl with pleasure. Life is a joke. All this trouble to find an answer like that. That devil is no good, but whoever created him isn’t any good either. Or do I have to get rid of this idea of creation? The creator created the earth, and with the earth he created the possibility of concentration camps, pain in every possible form, death, suffering. Perhaps there has never been a creator and it is likely that nothing was ever created. And if I have never been created, and therefore do not really exist, it doesn’t matter much if I am any good or not. Or not? Shaking my head and mumbling I met Han-san who gave me a worried look and wanted to know what had happened.

  “So you will go on coming every day,” he said, and seemed pleased. It seemed that I fulfilled an important part in Han-san’s life. He even explained it to me once. He admired me, he said, because I knew how to do many things and I knew such a lot. “But what then?” I asked, because I thought that he could do more and knew more than I. He could sit still for hours on end, repair walls, write Japanese and Chinese characters with a brush, and probably solve koans as well.

  “Well,” Han-san said and shrugged his shoulders. “Anybody can do that. And I don’t know much about koans. But you can drive a car, and you have traveled, and you speak English and German and your own language, and you have books which I can’t read and you don’t mind who you are dealing with and you entered this monastery voluntarily. If I hadn’t been forced to come here the idea would never have entered my head.”

  Fourteen

  If you don’t hold out your hand a Zen master will be murdered

  The day I moved, Ko-san, one of the young monks, was expelled from the monastery. If I hadn’t met him on his way to a taxi waiting for him at the gate, laboriously lugging a large suitcase and a bundle wrapped in a piece of multicolored cotton, the chances are that I would never have noticed his disappearance. Of the monks I only really knew the head monk, the cook, the tall thin Ke-san who often replaced the head monk, and, of course, Han-san, my friend and helpmate. The others I knew by name and face, but I had no contact with them. They lived in another part of the temple and formed, together, a solid block, cemented as a group by their shared activities: the daily begging-trip through the neighborhood, their work in the gardens, and the cleaning and repairing of the temple. Another reason for not knowing them was that I had been told, by the master and the head monk, not to join them. Three years pass quickly, the head monk said, and it is a hard task to change playful young monks into Zen priests with a sense of responsibility, and give them some idea of what Zen can be. The monks are looking for distraction, and what could be better than a westerner, dumped suddenly into their environment, like a circus bear who knows tricks?

  Han-san was the monastery’s messenger, and I could have a certain amount of contact with him, but with the others I could only work; and as soon as a bell or a gong was struck the togetherness came to an end and I had to return to my room, or leave the grounds for a Japanese lesson or the illegal relaxation of a visit to the bathhouse or restaurant, or a walk through the neighborhood.

  Ko-san I knew as a quiet monk who did, mildly and obediently, whatever he was told to do and who had only caught my attention by the lightning speed with which he climbed trees. The fir trees in the garden were cut and pruned regularly and Ko-san, who had special shoes with rubber soles for that purpose, could walk up the trees as if he had been a squirrel in a previous life and had suddenly remembered the fact. I had also noticed that he often missed the meditation periods, for in the hall he sat opposite me and if he wasn’t there there was a hole in the monotonous row of black shapes.

  I helped Ko-san with his suitcase and asked him where he was going.

  He mumbled something about home and stomachaches, but he looked so sad and despondent that I understood that there was something more serious going on than a simple sick leave.

  Han-san, as always, explained the incident.

  “Troubles,” Han-san told me. “These stomach cramps aren’t so bad; they are more like your throat ache when you don’t feel like getting up in the middle of the night.”

  “But I only have to move
,” I protested. “Ko-san is moving out altogether.”

  “Yes,” Han-san said. “He has been sent down, suddenly, this morning. The master and the head monk called him and now he has to go. He can tell his father that he is physically too weak for the monastic life, and now he’ll become a farmer I suppose, but perhaps he’ll return later.”

  Han-san wasn’t prepared to clarify the situation further. He was very busy, too, his name was called again, and in the main temple a gong was struck, indicating the beginning of a temple service.

  Peter and Gerald told me that it is not exceptional for a monk to be suddenly sent away; it may even be that the monk is trying to do his best but that he is hindered, somehow, by a block within himself, and cannot make any progress. The monastery’s authorities will then try, by inflicting a sudden shock and a change of environment, to force a breakthrough. It may be that the monk returns on his own initiative. Perhaps he finds another teacher who is able to get closer to him and with whom he has some special affinity. But it is also possible that the monk will terminate his training, or think that he is giving up his training. “The koan will continue to work in him,” Peter said. “A koan is a time bomb, a very complicated time bomb. One day the bomb will explode. It may happen years later, all sorts of winding paths may be walked, anything may have happened, but the master’s work is never lost.”

  “But when will this bomb explode? In this life? In a next life? And doesn’t the monk, or the ex-monk, have to do something himself to cause the flash? Surely it isn’t an automatic mechanism which will go off by itself after a certain period of time has passed?”

  Peter laughed when I asked the question.

  “This life, next life. You have read too much. Haven’t you ever considered the possibility that time doesn’t exist? That there is nothing but ‘now’? ‘Now’ you can do something. ‘Now’ is eternity. And if you don’t do anything ‘now’ nothing will happen ‘now.’”