Having Once Paused, Poems of Zen Master Ikkyu (1394-1481)

by Sarah Messer

  This is perfect buddhahood.

  The buddha-lineage of Xutang was brought to Japan by the work of ceaseless meditation and carried onward by Daitō, founder of Daitoku-ji. In his own hand the Emperor wrote “Spirit Radiance” on Daitō’s tomb.

  How do we repay the Buddha’s gift? A Zen patriarch replied:

  At the Surangama assembly, Ananda praised the Buddha, saying, “With my whole heart and mind I will revere the infinity of appearances.” This is called “repaying the Buddha’s blessing.”

  In the port city of Sakai one could buy or sell temples, koāns, certificates, or sermons. And so the Chinese warning against being taken for a thief: “Don’t tie your shoes in a melon patch, don’t straighten your hat under a pear tree.” But the purity of a true master—his interventions, manipulations, and strategies—is indifferent to gossip, is only a perfect response to the needs of beings.

  poem #489

  Severing Relations with the Sakai Crowd

  Xutang’s grandchildren are addicted to wealth and in love with fame.

  The spirit radiance of Daitō’s lineage has been completely lost.

  Pear hats and melon shoes—people get suspicious.

  But skill repays the Buddha’s blessing with its perfect tricks.

  The King of Chu, dreaming of his spirit consort, asks, “Who are you?” She replies, “In the morning I am the clouds, in the evening I am the rain. We will not meet again in these bodies.”

  A thousand years later, four men and women, praising the moon and wine, write a poem, one line each. Each line must contain the word “moon” and “goblet.” If they hesitate, they have to drink three cups of wine as penalty:

  The father says:

  The single-wheel bright moon shines on the golden goblet.

  The son:

  Wine fills the golden goblet, moon fills the wheel.

  The daughter:

  The bright moon hangs upside down inside the golden goblet.

  The son-in-law:

  I raise up the wine goblet and swallow down the moon.

  A Zen contemporary of theirs writes:

  The Son of Heaven of the sacred court sits in the Bright Hall.

  Beings and spirits within the four seas pillow their heads in utter peace.

  Youthful fūryū turns the golden goblet upside down.

  Peach blossoms fill the courtyard like red brocade.

  “Where is the mountain demon cave?” asks another Zen master. “It’s that place in a large monastic gathering where the Way dwells without going or dwelling. So smash it. Chatting like this is precisely the demon cave.”

  poem #90

  Crazy Cloud truly is Daitō’s grandson.

  What’s honorable about demon caves and black mountains?

  I think of the past. Flute songs, evenings of cloud and rain.

  Youthful fūryū turns the golden goblet upside down.

  Daitō’s name means “Great Lamp.” In 1326 he founded Daitoku-ji. In August 1453, most of it burned to the ground. Linji used to say, “Sometimes I take away both the person and the environment.”

  And yet always the Buddha’s body, the Buddha’s speech, the Buddha’s mind. Linji called these the Three Mysteries, naming the first “the mystery within the body.” Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch, said, “All of you people, your own mind is the Buddha!” Ikkyū wrote: “‘Take away the person, take away the environment’—this is the mystery within the body.”

  The Chronology of the Monk Ikkyū of the Eastern Sea tells of the Daitoku-ji fire:

  August. The towering heat and smoke of the conflagration. The bell and wooden fish, used to mark practice, were silent. Only the bathhouse, the veranda to the main gate, the Nyoi-an and the Daiyō-an remained. Then the monk Yōsō tore down the Daiyō-an to build the Spirit Radiance Pagoda to Daitō. Ikkyū wrote this gatha regarding the pagoda:

  poem #123

  Regarding the Pagoda of National Teacher Daitō, After the Daitoku-ji Fire

  Drafted 128 years ago,

  Today it looks like a dark mystery within the body.

  After orthodoxy and heterodoxy, environment and dharma, have been completely destroyed,

  There’s still that Great Lamp, radiating through the great 1000 worlds.

  Pious worshippers scatter powdered incense on statues of the Buddha to increase their miraculous power.

  “Your childish prattle gives me a sour face,” goes a poem from Southern Song.

  poem #454

  I Hate Incense

  Who can even discuss a master’s methods?

  Speaking of Dao, talking of Zen, your tongues grow long.

  Old Ikkyū abhors your scrambling after marvels.

  I make a pinched, sour face, all this incense thrown on the Buddha.

  The Blue Cliff Record sets out this kōan:

  One day Yanguan called to his attendant, “Bring me the rhinoceros fan.”

  The attendant said, “The fan is broken.”

  Yanguan said, “Since the fan is broken, then give me back the rhinoceros itself.”

  The attendant had no reply.

  That precious horn of Buddha-nature that grows on the head of every sentient being—where is it now, and how will we ever get it back?

  Vagrant Lu wandered into the temple of the Fifth Patriarch.

  The Patriarch asked him, “Who are you and what do you want?”

  He said, “I’m a southerner, and I want to become a Buddha.”

  “Southerners don’t have Buddha-nature.”

  “Men are southern and northern, but Buddha-nature has no south and north.”

  And so Lu became a student of the Fifth Patriarch and eventually turned into Huineng, the Great Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Zen.

  poem #208

  Who is given the rhinoceros-horn fan?

  And what if Lord Lu wanders in the door?

  Constant talk of famous families in the dharma hall,

  As if in the office of a hundred imperial bureaucrats.

  Puhua, eating raw vegetables outside the meditation hall or tipping over the dinner table—the only one who ever got the better of Linji. He’d scourge the streets, tugging and overturning everything. He’d say:

  When brightness comes, hitting brightness.

  When darkness comes, hitting darkness.

  When the four directions and eight sides come, a whirlwind hits.

  When emptiness comes, I hit like a flail.

  Or the time a monk asked Zhaozhou, “What is Zhaozhou?” and he said, “East gate, west gate, south gate, north gate.”

  In The Chronology of The Monk Ikkyū of the Eastern Sea it states:

  Someone asked Kasō, “After your death, to whom will your dharma be transmitted?”

  He replied, “Although his way is crazy, there’s this pure young guy, Ikkyū.”

  poem #156

  Praising Myself

  Crazy, crazy man roils up a crazy wind,

  Coming and going between brothels and wine shops.

  Is there an un-blind monk who can test my understanding?

  Painting south, painting north, painting west and east.

  II.

  Fūryū

  the flow of wind

  The monk Lingyun practiced Zen for thirty years without any understanding. By chance one day he saw a peach tree, luxuriant and in full bloom. Suddenly he was enlightened, and his joy was beyond all understanding. A poem says:

  At root there is no delusion or enlightenment, a jumble beyond enumeration.

  Lingyun alone is a true master.

  May I ask all honored patriarchs everywhere

  If they know the spot to see peach blossoms?

  The Queen Mother of the West, she of Pure Jade Pond, lives in the distant Kunlun Mountains, where earth borders heaven. Golden peaches of immortality grow on her tree. At auspicious moments she has invited great emperors of China to join her and enjoy her peaches of eternal life. But none could hold his place beside her, so each remained merely human, dy
ing in sorrow.

  poem #421

  Upon Seeing a Picture of Peach Blossoms

  Seeing the spot, fūryū enlightens the mind of dao.

  One branch of peach blossoms is worth a thousand ounces of gold.

  Queen Mother of Pure Jade Pond, face of spring wind.

  I bind myself to the men of sorrow, songs of cloud and rain.

  Once there was a monk known only as Old Ding. He asked Linji, “What is the great meaning of Buddha’s dharma?” Linji got down from his dais and slapped him. Ding just stood there, frozen. The monk sitting next to him said, “Ding, why don’t you bow?” As Ding bowed, suddenly he was greatly enlightened.

  Afterwards, he meets a couple of monks on the road. “Where’re you coming from?” they ask. “Linji.” “Give us something of him,” they ask, so he tells the famous story of Linji, who said:

  In this lump of raw red meat is a true man without rank.

  And when someone asked Linji what that is, he’d say,

  The true man without rank is just some dried shit-stick.

  But the monks on the road with Ding can’t grasp it. One’s mouth falls open. The other asks, “Why don’t you say ‘Not a true man without rank’?”

  Old Ding says, “A true man without rank and not a true man without rank, how far apart are they? Quickly, quickly, speak.” But he couldn’t answer. So Ding says, “If you guys weren’t so old, I’d beat both you bed-wetting imps to death.”

  poem #477

  The bed-wetting imp is a man in great distress.

  Old Ding has the right trick, the power of his blessings is deep.

  Night rain. Before the lamp, confusion is already forgotten.

  In the fūryū tea-house, chanting ancient times.

  Shaman Mountain, the dream of the King of Chu, clouds and rain.

  The Blue Cliff Record sets out this case:

  Jingqing asked a monk, “What’s that sound outside?”

  The monk said, “The sound of rain drops.”

  Jingqing said, “Sentient beings are all topsy-turvy. They delude themselves pursuing things outside themselves.”

  So when Zhuangzi asks himself, “What is a gentleman of the rivers and seas?” he answers, “He moves in close to the marsh, dwells freely in bright vastness, and fishes in an idle spot, doing nothing at all.”

  In the realm of that vast brightness, the sages of highest antiquity discerned patterns in the natural world, pattern forces they called Qian and Kun. Qian and Kun are Heaven and Earth, are the active and the receptive, male and female, the first two hexagrams of the Yijing or Book of Change.

  More than two thousand years afterwards, rebellion rends China. The Tang Emperor gives up his concubine Yang Guifei to be killed and abdicates the throne to his son. A verse:

  The moon, sinking, sinking. . . .

  The fūryū Emperor does not return.

  During that rebellion, Du Fu, China’s greatest poet, flees the capital with his family, securing them outside a farming village at Fuzhou. Then he travels out to serve the new Emperor. On the road he’s captured by rebel troops and returned to the capital. From there he writes his wife:

  When will we lean against the open screen,

  The moon shining on us both, drying the traces of tears?

  poem #823

  On Shaman Mountain rain drops join in a new song.

  Lewd fūryū, my poetry is also lewd.

  Rivers and seas, Qian and Kun, the tears of Du Fu.

  In Fuzhou, tonight the moon is sinking, sinking.

  Manjushri is the bodhisattva of wisdom. But what is that wisdom?

  Buddha’s great disciple Ananda accomplished the wisdom of an arhat, someone who has left the red dust of samsara behind, who is free of desire and hatred.

  But a bodhisattva attains Manjushri’s Great Wisdom and finally Buddhahood only by never abandoning the sorrows of samsara.

  The Lankavatara Sutra tells this story:

  At that time Ananda went begging for food and, following along the streets, passed by some brothels. There he met the woman Matangi, who had great skill in sorcery and used the Kapila Brahma mantra to draw him inside. She bent forward, fondling him, and was about to destroy the essence of his vows.

  The Buddha himself, dwelling in vast space, saw this delicate moment, and sent the bodhisattva Manjushri to recite a mantra that would counter her sorcery.

  The evil spell was extinguished. Thereupon Ananda and Matangi were carried off to the place of the Buddha. Ananda prostrated and put the Buddha’s feet on his head, weeping in compassion.

  poem #255

  An arhat emerges from dust and thus pushes Buddhahood away.

  When I enter a brothel, I display Great Wisdom.

  I laugh deeply at Manjushri reciting the Lankavatara Sutra.

  He has lost the whole business of his youthful fūryū.

  Thousands of years ago the Sage Emperor Shun ruled all China. Even though he was born into the poverty of a three-family village, wherever he went, he transformed society. Coming to a pottery-making village rife with quarrels, he brought such order that a year later their pots were more beautiful than ever. Coming to a fishing village rent by murderous squabbles, he brought peace. Learning of Shun’s nobility, the Emperor Yao gave him his two daughters and the throne.

  Because his wives had grown up spoiled by luxury, it is said that they were often filled with intemperate lust. With Shun, they learned to be humble and work the fields. Yet when he died, they forgot everything, and their unfulfilled passion drove them rushing to the spot where his body had fallen. They pleaded for his return, crying over his corpse until their tears turned to blood. The songs of their weeping might have brought down a dynasty, but Shun would not hear them.

  Later, Confucius wrote:

  All vocal sounds arise from the human mind. The human mind responds to stimuli and moves, shaping itself in sound. Music is thus based in the human mind and its response to things.

  The way of sound is communicated through governance. If the five notes oppress each other, this is called “being out of tune.” In that case, the state will soon come to its doom. The music in the Mulberry Grove above Pu River is the music of a doomed state.

  poem #271

  Pointing Out Lewd People

  Singing salacious songs in the Mulberry Grove above Pu River,

  And still my deepest reverence for youthful fūryū.

  A traveler through the three-family villages of the world,

  Shun did not recognize the songs of his two consorts.

  Zhuangzi was a true gentleman of the rivers and seas.

  Master Yantou rowed his boat for two days across the lake, driven from his monastery in the religious persecution of late Tang.

  Master Muzhou returned home to care for his mother, avoiding rebellion in the countryside. To support them both, he repaired straw sandals, using wild grape leaves he found along the road.

  Linji said, “Sometimes I take away both the person and the environment.”

  Someone asked, “What is it when you don’t take it away?”

  He said, “The king ascends his jeweled hall, rustic elders sing their songs.”

  poem #5

  The practice of working the oars, Yantou’s boat.

  Muzhou weaves sandals, grape-leaf autumn.

  Rustic elders can’t hide their praise for straw hats and raincoats.

  What person? The rivers and seas, a single fūryū.

  Four thousand years ago Emperor Shun’s wives cried tears of blood over his body. Then they threw themselves into the River Xiang and drowned.

  Two thousand years later the Marquis of Biyang was such a pet to the Han Empress that she made him Prime Minister, and anyone wanting access to her was dependent on his whim.

  A thousand years after that, Li Qunyu encountered Shun’s two wives as spirits of the River Xiang. They told him to meet them in two years, and they would all become lovers. A friend mocked him, “I didn’t know you were the Biyang Ma
rquis to Shun’s two wives!” Li Qunyu wrote:

  For a moment we take up the wind and moon of sex, resenting that the lake is calm.

  See completely how the water of the fusang tree is all dried up.

  “Fusang,” which is what the Chinese call the nation of Japan. Li Qunyu’s poem continues:

  The promises we made on the almond-blossom altar are gone.

  Inside the painted game-box, we play at backgammon, red and purple pieces.

  Buddha gave laypeople five precepts. One prohibits improper sexual conduct, often interpreted as adultery, homosexuality, or masturbation. But Crazy Cloud Ikkyū writes about the sexual apparitions of suicide, politics, fantasy, and commerce.

  poem #329

  The Precept Against Improper Sexual Conduct

  The young people in the brothel are also fūryū.

  They kiss and hug, the crazy guest is sad.

  Deluded, Li Qunyu plays backgammon.

  The great fame of Emperor Shun and the Biyang Marquis.