The Empty Mirror

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  “I think so,” I said. “It’s part of the training, and since the master thought of this arrangement, I can assume that the master knows what he’s doing.”

  “Hmmm,” Gerald said. “I wouldn’t be able to do it. I should leave. I can put up with self-discipline, but they mustn’t push me around. But perhaps you need this type of treatment, maybe you’ll get self-discipline this way—for one thing is certain, you haven’t got it. If they put you in a house by yourself you would just mess about.”

  “Thank you kindly,” I said, “Peter is friendlier than you are.”

  “Nonsense,” said Gerald and gave me a cigarette. “I am your friend, he is your boss. If a friend makes an unpleasant remark it’s all right.”

  I began to realize that I should never be able to solve the koan, although I was quite convinced that the koan did have an answer. My visits to the master had degenerated into a dumb silence on my side. I had given all the answers I could think of, so what else could I do? I went because the visits were part of the daily routine, because I enjoyed riding through the silent city, because I admired the master, and out of irritation. He knew the answer, I did not know the answer. Every morning I saw a man who knew all the answers, sitting on a little platform, an old man with slanting eyes and pouring out strength.

  My lack of a result didn’t depress me. I was far too busy digesting the new impressions of my life with Peter, with the many different tasks of which my life consisted, and which in themselves were all exercises. Best of all I liked the daily shopping. Before the scooter arrived I would walk, every morning, through a narrow street formed by many stalls, jostling each other for space. I bought vegetables, meat, tea and all sorts of Japanese specialities which formed, because they were cheap, part of our daily menu. I carried a basket on my arm but I only felt ridiculous the first day. The shopkeepers didn’t laugh, and the general friendliness which I encountered everywhere put me at ease. When I had the scooter I would ride her slowly through the street and the stallholders would put my purchases, very carefully, in the basket which I had tied behind me. Everyone knew what and how much I needed, and kept small change ready so that I could pay quickly. The quiet rhythm of this daily trip fascinated me and every day I tried to perfect the many small activities which were part of this practice. I think it was one of the very few at which I became more or less an adept.

  But while I amused myself with novelties, Gerald had reached a dip in the path, and seemed very depressed. His eyes were dull, he began to walk in a slouching manner and his conversations were toneless and negative. To cheer him up I told him a story which I had heard Peter tell some time ago, when I was still living in the monastery.

  Once a Zen monk drew attention to himself by his supreme diligence. He got up earlier than the other monks, spent more time on meditation, sang the sutras with concentrated awareness, excelled at playing the temple drum, never lost his temper and tried to do everything as well as possible. He behaved like this for a number of years and was made head monk. One morning, when he was walking in the temple garden, he admitted to himself that he had spent sixteen years in the monastery and that he hadn’t solved his koan, his first koan, the Mu-koan. The other monks, and most of them had spent only three years in the monastery, had not only solved the Mu-koan but many other koans as well. He was the only one who had never shown any progress, real progress, for all his other achievements didn’t count.

  He had, of course, thought of this before, but he had never allowed himself to become depressed. Buddhism, when practised well, creates two feelings, two pillars on which the Buddhist life is built. It creates compassion, and it creates detachment. To be detached is to be free. To be free leads to equanimity. But now, after sixteen years of continuous trying, the whole thing became too much for him. “A moment will come,” the monk reflected, “when one has to admit failure. My monastic training has lead to nothing. I have wasted sixteen years. And if this is true, I am leaving.”

  He went to the master’s room and, without asking for permission to enter, strolled up to where the master was sitting and said “Master, I am off.” The master looked at him. He didn’t seem surprised or disappointed. He nodded and said that the monk should do as he thought best. The monk gathered his few belongings and left the monastery. He found a deserted temple in the mountains, moved in, and gave up all further attempts to solve his koan. He got up at six in the morning, worked in the garden, repaired part of the roof so that it stopped leaking and fixed the sagging floor, and twice a week he went to the nearest village to beg for a little rice and money. He didn’t give up Buddhism, for he still believed that Buddha had successfully finished the eightfold path, but he was sure that he, the monk, would never go that far and so he stopped caring. He intended to live the rest of his life in complete indifference, without being irritated by master or koan.

  After a few months the monk was sweeping the courtyard of his temple and his broom struck a pebble which shot against the bamboo fence, making a sharp sound. This unexpected sound broke something in the being of the monk and suddenly he knew the answer to his koan. He dropped the broom, ran all the way to the city, and arrived panting at the monastery gate where he found the master waiting for him.

  “Yes,” Gerald said, “and not only had he solved his first koan but he knew all answers to all koans and he lived long and happily. He became a Zen master and he had many disciples. But I also know a story, about another monk, not so long ago. This monk was given a modern version of an ancient koan. The ancient koan is ‘Stop a wild horse which is charging straight at you’; the modern version says ‘stop the Inter-city train coming from Tokyo.’ Do you know what this monk did?” Gerald asked. “I’ll tell you what this monk did. He meditated for years and years on this train, and one day he walked to the tracks and threw himself at the Inter-city coming from Tokyo. And in one split second there was nothing left of him and he was quite dead.”

  I must have looked startled, and got up to go to my room.

  “Wait,” Gerald said, “I know another real life story. In Tokyo there are some Zen monasteries as well. In one of these monasteries, quite recently you know, last year, or the year before, there was a Zen monk who happened to be very conceited. He refused to listen to whatever the master was trying to tell him and used the early morning interviews with the master to air all his pet theories. The masters have a special stick for this type of pupil. Our master has one, too, you will have seen it, a short thick stick. One morning the master hit the monk so hard that the monk didn’t get up any more. He couldn’t, because he was dead.”

  “Isn’t that against the law?” I asked.

  “Law, what law?” Gerald said. “The head monk reported the incident to the police, but the master was never charged. Even the police know that there is an extraordinary relationship between master and pupil, a relationship outside the law.”

  When Gerald started his motorcycle and rode slowly through the gate I understood that I hadn’t cheered him up.

  Seventeen

  Is a cloud a member of the sky?

  I had now spent a year and a half in Japan. Leo Marks was introducing me to his acquaintances as “my Buddhist friend.” But I had never become a Buddhist. When I paid my monthly 2000 yen (£2) to the head monk I told him that I would like to become a Buddhist, to enter the religion officially.

  The head monk put the money into his drawer, drew some artistic characters in his ledger and noted on a strip of paper: “Jan-san, 2000 yen,” and the date. The strip of paper was glued to the wall of the corridor, where it became the last miniature paper flag at the end of a row of thousands of strips. When the corridor was full he would tear them all down and begin again.

  “Well,” he said, “it can be done, of course. But it’s up to the master really. He is the high priest and he decides about an important matter like this. I’ll mention your request and you’ll hear from us.”

  About a week later Han-san came to tell me that the master was expecting me
. The master was having dinner when I came and I waited, kneeling on the floormat, till he had finished. He never had his meals with us but was served, three times a day, a tray with covered bowls: a bowl of rice, a bowl of vegetables and a bowl of soup; and a pot of green tea. The distance from the kitchen to the master’s little house was about a quarter of a mile and his food, especially during winter, must have been cold many times. I pitied him; it would have been better if he had shared our meals. We could always have second helpings by folding our hands and staring at the cook while he was serving—we weren’t allowed to point but we could indicate the required dish by looking at it and shaking our heads if he got it wrong. The master had to satisfy himself with whatever was brought to him.

  While I waited I tried to imagine how this man lived. Every morning he had to get up at three o’clock, then he saw twenty or more disciples, each at a different stage of development, each in his own world, most of them working on different koans from different angles, with all sorts of blocks and problems and wrong or half-baked ideas. Then, after that, perhaps a nap. Then breakfast, work in the garden, or his job in the main temple. He was the high priest of a large complex of Zen temples and had to supervise them all. He had to know what the Zen priests in the neighborhood were doing and guide them when necessary. One of the temples near us was a home for the elderly and two young priests were in charge, looking after the old men and women. There had been a scandal when one of the priests had gambled and lost a large part of the temple’s funds. The master had taken care of the crisis and the young priest had been sent on a pilgrimage. The master had spent a lot of time on the priest, trying to find a way of using the incident for the priest’s benefit. Perhaps he had given him a fresh koan, or he may have insisted that the priest solved the last koan he was working on, when he finished his three years in the monastery.

  The master also went off on lecturing trips now and then, visiting the large cities, speaking to whoever showed interest in Zen, travelling during the months when our discipline was relaxed. And when he returned from such a trip he would have to deal with us again. I knew he had two ways of relaxing: he would watch baseball on TV and when an important match was on he would lock his house and nobody could see him. He would also go to the cinema sometimes, but only when he could see a picture connected in some way with Africa; he liked animals and the jungle-lush, tropical vegetation. I had even witnessed a difference of opinion between master and head monk. The master wanted to go to the cinema and asked the head monk for money. The master never had any money, because the monastery’s funds were in the hands of the head monk. The head monk refused.

  “You have been ill. You are supposed to stay in and sleep in the afternoons. You have a weak heart.”

  “Maybe,” the master said, “but I want to go to the cinema now. It’s the last day this picture is on, I looked it up in the newspaper. Who knows if and when the picture will come again. There’s an elephant hunt in it and I must see it.”

  In the end the monk gave in, on condition that the master took a taxi and Han-san went with him in case he became unwell.

  Our master, in fact, was a pleasant man of simple habits. I knew that some high priests of the sect enjoyed heading processions, marching along in gold-colored robes, protected by huge sunshades carried by acolytes. They insisted on being addressed by their proper titles and if you had had tea with them you had to leave the room walking backwards. But one of these high priests, who was also a Zen master, had shocked his public by joining a procession dressed in a cheap house robe, and wearing plastic bath sandals. Later he had left his palatial temple and gone to India, as a deck passenger, to visit the holy places. He begged on the way, for he had taken no money, begged with his bowl, as the rule prescribes. He took only an extra kimono, some underwear and his toilet gear, a staff and his bowl. He was away for two years. The priests were annoyed when he came back. They had expected him to travel in style; he was, after all, a high priest, comparable to a bishop or a cardinal. He could have travelled first class and taken monks with him, as servants. The Buddhist church is no longer rich—in 1946 most its possessions were taken away—but there’s still some money.

  The master had finished his meal and looked at me.

  “I hear you want to become a Buddhist.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I have been your disciple for some time now, but I have never entered the faith, or the church, or whatever I should call it. I should like to do so now.”

  “It can be done,” the master said. “We have a special ceremony for this purpose. Quite an impressive ceremony really. All our monks, and also all priests connected with the monastery in one way or another, will come. They will all dress in their best robes. I’ll wear the garb which you’ll have seen me in before, at New Year for instance; the robe is uncomfortable because brocade is heavy, but it looks well. Sutras will be chanted and you’ll have to come forward and kneel down and I’ll ask you some questions to which you’ll have to answer ‘yes.’ You’ll have to declare that you are seeking your refuge in Buddha, in the Teaching, and in the Brotherhood of Buddhists. You’ll also have to confirm that you will refuse to enter Nirvana till all living beings are ready to become part of the ultimate reality.

  “Then I’ll wave my horsehair brush and the sutra chanting will begin again and Gi-san will play his drum and the head monk and Ke-san will strike their gong and after that there will be a feast for monks and guests. It can be organized. I’ll have to ask the head monk to find a suitable date for the ceremony.”

  He looked at me. I didn’t know what to say. It seemed a very acceptable proposition. But it seemed that the master was expecting something.

  “All right then,” I said in the end. “Many thanks for your trouble.”

  He nodded. I thought the interview had ended, bowed and got up. When I was near the door the master called me back.

  “There’s something I wanted to ask. Why do you want this ceremony to take place? Do you think it will do something for you?”

  I had to admit that I didn’t think so.

  “Do you think that, by becoming a Buddhist, you’ll get closer to solving your koan?”

  No, I didn’t think so.

  “Hmm,” the master said and turned away. The interview was now really at an end and I left the room.

  In the garden I looked for Han-san and found him loading cucumbers into a wheelbarrow.

  “Are you a Buddhist?” I asked.

  Han-san might be a simple country lad but he was quick on the uptake.

  “I?” he asked innocently. “I study Zen Buddhism”; (literally translated he said “I do Zen Buddhism study”).

  “Yes,” I said impatiently, “I know. But are you a Buddhist?”

  “You know,” Han-san said, “that ‘I’ don’t exist. I change all the time. Every moment I am different. I exist in the way a cloud exists. A cloud is a Buddhist, too. You call me ‘Han-san’ and pretend that I was yesterday what I shall be today. But that’s your business. In reality there is no Han-san. And how can an unreal Han-san be a Buddhist?”

  “Don’t be so intricate” I said. “All I ask you is whether or not you are a member of the Buddhist brotherhood.”

  “Is a cloud a member of the sky?” Han-san asked.

  I gave up. The ceremony was never mentioned again.

  Eighteen

  Whatever ends begins

  “God is good” the curate said. It was Sunday afternoon and I was staying in Leo Mark’s house. The sun was shining in the library and I had opened the windows so that I could hear the sea. The curate was also staying with Leo; Leo’s house was a free hotel for wandering bums.

  “As long as they shave,” Leo said, “and close their mouths while they are eating.”

  I had met sea captains in his house, who had taken old ships to Japan as scrap for the blast furnaces. And writers. Travelling businessmen. And now the curate.

  “Why is God good?” I asked.

  “Because the canary is singin
g so beautifully.”

  Near the open window Leo’s canary was whistling away, a jubilant song, full of complicated trills and clear prolonged notes.

  “Very true,” said Leo, who had come in without us noticing him, “God is good.”

  Two Buddhists and a curate in complete agreement.

  A few days later I was riding my scooter along a precipice. Peter had left the city for a day and I had broken my program to go out on a trip. Kyoto is surrounded by mountains and I had ridden off without looking at the map. After half an hour I saw no more people. I was riding on a mountain path meant for mountaineers. I saw bits of forest, alpine meadows, and sometimes a glint of Lake Biwa, far below me. Near the precipice I thought that I could, by twisting the handlebars a little, solve a lot of problems very easily. A crumpled scooter and a broken body, and the world, the universe, would cease to exist.

  I parked the scooter and sat on an overhanging piece of rock, dangling my legs into the empty sky. The merest self-inflicted push and whoops, China gone and the 700 million Chinese too.

  But how about my soul? Buddha had always refused to answer the question. Soul or no soul, life after death or no life after death, an empty question. Walk the eightfold path and the question will drop away by itself, later, now, it doesn’t matter. But I was sitting on a rock with my legs stuck into nothing. If I entered Nothing altogether, what would be left over? And suppose something were left, where would it go? Heaven or Hell? The hell of the suicides, a sad sphere filled with sad shuffling shapes, complaining transparent shadows? I pulled in my legs, walked back to the scooter and was back within an hour. On the way I hardly looked at the landscape and the busy farmers and their women folk, working in their picturesque kimonos. I tried to come to the end of my line of thought. What had I learned, after a year and a half of falling over and getting up? That I had to do my best, that I had to try and do everything as well as possible. But I could have learned that in Rotterdam. Dutchmen, and the inhabitants of Rotterdam in particular, do their best; it’s a national custom. All I would have to do is imitate my environment, which should be the easiest exercise in the world; it is much easier to join one’s examples than to go against them.