Tracking Bodhidharma Read online

  I buy a cable car ticket, and in a few moments the attendant hustles me alone into a moving cable car for the ride to visit Separate Transmission Temple.

  The massive, forested mountain form and the scene jolt a memory of another Chinese Zen master, Danxia Zichun (1064—1117), whose name is associated with Danxia Mountain. He talked about a mountain and employed the metaphor of a jewel to convey his teaching on the nature of the mind:[Danxia Zichun] entered the hall and addressed the monks, saying, “Within the cosmos, inside the universe, at the very center, there is a jewel concealed in Form Mountain.

  “Dharma Master Zhao [Zhaozhou] says that you can only point at tracks and speak of traces of this jewel, and that you cannot hold it up for others to see. But today I split open the universe, break apart Form Mountain, and hold the jewel forth for all of you to observe! Those with the eye of wisdom will see it!”

  Danxia hit the floor with his staff and said, “Do you see? It’s [like] a white egret in the snow, but that’s not its color. Nor does it resemble the clear moon, nor the reeds in the water!”

  I turn around and look at the view in the other direction. Far beneath the clear sky, the fingers of Danxia Lake stretch in and out of the encircling peaks, a few large tour boats shuttling tourists along its shimmering surface.

  14. Separate Transmission Temple

  AT THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN, a summit trail winds through ubame oak, Chinese horsetail pine, and ficus trees that shade a series of mountaintop lookouts. Each vantage point is positioned to expose a view of the area’s unique terrain, its smokestack-like mountains rising vertically from broad forested valleys. Along the path, hikers sit on log benches and enjoy lunches of fried bread and bottled water. The lone foreigner causes some interest among people enjoying their fall holiday, and I pause several times during my hike to have my picture taken, backdropped by spiraling rock columns, with honeymooning couples, giggling schoolmates, and sundry retirees enjoying this quiet corner of China.

  The trails are well-marked, and I walk for a half hour or so and then ascend some nearly vertical stone stairs to reach a high lookout at the end of the mountain’s ridge. There, a wide panorama of Danxia’s peaks and valleys stretches in three directions. Directly below me on the mountain, perched with a western exposure, Separate Transmission Temple nestles into a hollow on the mountainside. From my overlook I can see down past the temple to where Danxia Lake winds through shadowed valleys. The whole effect is a picture of a Zen monk’s retreat from the dusty world, where a “separate transmission” can be truly separate from everything else.

  Retreating from the high lookout, I start down the steep mountain path leading to the temple. Soon it reaches a nearly sheer face that drops to the area off to the temple’s side. Clutching a safety chain bolted into the mountainside,! I descend about fifty meters down a set of steps carved into the escarpment. Near the bottom, a gazebo perched on an outcropping serves as a mid-descent resting place. After a few minutes there, I continue descending the last elevation to the level of the temple, reaching a place a hundred meters or so from its front gate but at the same level. I circle to my left toward the front of the complex. In Chinese feng shui, it’s considered very lucky to situate a building with “mountain behind, water in front,” and Separate Transmission Temple is a classic example of this arrangement. From the small Heavenly Kings Hall that sits at the front of the temple compound, its buildings rise up the steep slope to some sheer vertical bluffs. In the other direction, the afternoon sun reflects on pretty Danxia Lake a mile or so down below.

  A monk happens by, and I ask him if the abbot is in today. He nods and smiles, greeting me with his hands clasped, and then points toward some buildings that stretch east from the central temple area. It’s clear that the rather squeezed area on the central axis of the temple is too small to accommodate the monks that now reside here, and the temple has expanded horizontally in the flat area along the side of the mountain to make room for its new population. The monk tells me to follow him, and we make our way through a construction area toward a newly built hall. Inside there’s a statue of Dizang Bodhisattva that overlooks floor cushions where temple services are held. Passing to the hall’s right, the monk leads me to a building with living quarters. He ducks into an open doorway, and a few moments later he reemerges with Separate Transmission’s abbot beside him.

  Happily, the abbot is just having tea with two other monks at a table just inside the door, and he invites me to enter. He introduces himself as Benchang, a name that means “Fundamental Shining.” He’s around forty years old and has an earnest, intelligent, and welcoming demeanor. A large wooden carving of Kwan Yin sits on a bookcase behind him, and the room is otherwise adorned with photos of Buddhist clergy and carved Buddhist figures. He adds hot water to a Yixing teapot as I explain my reason for visiting Danxia Mountain. By the time I’ve stopped my short introduction, he pours a cup of Iron Kwan Yin tea, hands it to me, and smiles.

  “Danxia Tianran didn’t live on this mountain. He lived during the Tang dynasty. This temple was set up much later, during the Kang Xi period of the Qing dynasty.”

  I notice the tea tastes slightly bitter.

  “There’s confusion around this subject because the monk that set up this temple was named Dangui [”Peace Returns“]. He had a teacher whose name was also Tianran, and people get that name confused with the monk who lived eight hundred years earlier in the Tang dynasty.”

  My quest to find Danxia’s Dharma seat will have to continue elsewhere.

  “What was Dangui’s story?” I ask.

  “Dangui was an official who worked during the Ming dynasty (1368—1644). When the Ming dynasty collapsed, he grew weary of the world and decided to leave it behind. He became a monk at Hai Chuang [”Ocean Banner“—the same place where Jimmy Lin has his office] Monastery in Guangzhou and later came up on this mountain and established Special Transmission Temple.”

  Benchang then tells me his own story. When he graduated from college in the late’80s, he first worked as a businessman but then decided to become a monk and took ordination in 1992. He studied under the famous monk Yicheng at True Thusness Temple on Yunju (“Cloud Abode”) Mountain. In 1997 he was sent here to Separate Transmission Temple, where he became abbot.

  I’ve visited Cloud Abode Temple, where Benchang was ordained, on different occasions, and I’ve also met his teacher Yicheng at that location. It’s famous as the place where Empty Cloud lived just prior to his death there in 1959. Cloud Abode Temple is aptly named. On my first visit, the entire mountain was socked in with clouds and fog, a steady rain causing a constant downpour from the monastery’s roofs. Old abbot Yicheng, once a student of Empty Cloud, was very welcoming. When I said I felt honored to be at the place where Empty Cloud lived and died, Yicheng said, “Would you like to see his sacred relics?” I was completely taken aback by his offer. A moment later he disappeared behind the altar at the center of the abbots’ reception room and reappeared with a pagoda-shaped vial containing the pearl-like, round relics, some of the remains of Empty Cloud after his cremation. That he showed these sacred items to a total stranger who happened in out of the rain really surprised me. Later, when I told this story to my friend Bill Porter (a.k.a. the author Red Pine), he told me that Yicheng was famous for doing crazy things.

  Benchang and I drink a pot of tea and talk about Cloud Abode Temple, Yicheng, and other topics of common interest. Obviously, Separate Transmission Temple doesn’t have a known relationship with either Danxia Tianran or Bodhidharma. There are only some records indicating that monks of the Tang dynasty already lived in huts on the mountain. Apparently it’s long been regarded as an ideal escape from the dusty world.

  After one more pot of tea, I say I must be going, and Benchang accompanies me outside. He instructs me about taking the path down the mountain, and after we say good-bye I walk out the temple gate and turn, one last time, to look at the temple’s special position on the planet. Above it on the bluffs there are big C
hinese characters that have been carved into the face of the mountain over long centuries. The temple’s name is carved among them, its characters accented with vermillion paint. Four other characters proclaim THE RED DUST DOESN’T REACH HERE.

  A short way down the mountain the trail branches, and I’m met by a signpost, complete with photos of the sights to be seen in each direction. One trail leads to a most unusual-looking cave that is graphically depicted on the signpost. The cave has a stunning resemblance a certain private part of the female anatomy. Then I remember the unmistakably phallic photo on the park entrance ticket and realize one reason why Danxia Mountain commands special interest, especially in China’s famously yin and yang culture. The place has remarkable geographic features, but the strangest ones are still a little too risque to gain acceptance as a UNESCO World Heritage Site!

  15. Nanchang City

  LATE IN THE EVENING I board the night train for Nanchang. Instead of traveling northeast directly to that city, it first goes northwest to Hengyang City in Hunan Province. After picking up some passengers there around midnight, the train turns east to enter Jiangxi Province from the west, passing through ancient Zen country, a place where local dialects still use the word Zen instead of Chan, revealing the origin of the pronunciation still used in Japan and the West. The train route from Hengyang to Nanchang City passes like a belt under the belly of much ancient Zen real estate. Not far north of the rail line are many ancient temples where the most famous masters of old lived and taught. That area is my next destination along Bodhidharma’s ancient path.

  At 7:00 AM I drag my bags onto the platform to follow the crowd through the exit tunnel. An army of taxis waits to disperse the train’s passengers through the city.

  Nanchang is typical of cities in China today. As the country undergoes the hard transition from agricultural to urban society, its “midsize” cities like Nanchang have exploded. In such cities, millions of new urban workers arrive from countless villages, struggling to get a foothold in China’s middle class. They are left to their own wit and devices to do this. In this nominally socialist country, there is even less of a safety net than exists in the capitalist United States.

  I check into a hotel that I located on the Internet before I left Shaoguan. It will serve as my base while I explore the geographic bowels of ancient Zen during the next couple of days.

  After a night on the train, I won’t travel farther today but will get ready to leave for the countryside in the morning. Today I will stick around here and drop by Youmin Temple, one of the Dharma seats where Zen Master Mazu (whose name means “Horse Master”) lived and taught more than thirteen centuries ago.

  Mazu, who as I mentioned earlier was the teacher of Danxia, is among the most famous Zen masters of ancient times. The picture of him painted in old texts is of a big, dynamic, self-assured Zen master, reportedly with a tongue so large he could cover his nose with it. Emphasizing the teachings of the Shurangama Sutra, he forcefully expounded the teaching “Mind is Buddha,” and his next two generations of disciples, numbering well over one hundred persons, spread this teaching not only throughout China but to Korea and Vietnam as well. In terms of the “three halls” analogy, Mazu’s message that “Mind is Buddha” corresponds with the insight gained from the Buddha Hall.

  But in Mazu, a paradox at the heart of Zen reveals itself. After preaching “Mind is Buddha” for many years, he switched his vantage point and started teaching the idea of “No Mind, no Buddha.” Or another way to say this is that he moved from the Buddha Hall on to the Dharma Hall, the signless place.

  Scholars apply the word antinomian, which I talked about previously, to Mazu. Old stories tell how he would shout at or even hit his disciples. Some claim he started this sort of strange behavior, which then spread to some of the teachers who followed him.

  It’s not the purpose of this book to explain these odd—and to modern sensibilities, even offensive—ways of acting. But I will offer one more observation on the antinomian criticism. Remember that Zen requires its students to look inward, not outward. They must realize their own nature, not carry around some idea that others have given them. In this light, a lot of the behaviors of the old Zen masters may be easier to accept. Zen teachers were sometimes abrupt and even forceful about cutting off their students’ wandering minds. Seeing the nature of one’s own mind sometimes occurs suddenly and may be precipitated by abrupt actions. The Zen tradition of Mazu and other spiritual descendants of the Sixth Ancestor Huineng is referred to as the Sudden school, meaning that enlightenment occurs suddenly. The way some of the old Zen teachers taught can be viewed in that context.

  I once accompanied a group of Vietnamese Zen Buddhists to visit Zen monasteries in China. The group was composed of many abbots, abbesses, and lay people, mostly of Vietnamese descent, who had come from around the world to take part in the tour. One evening we met with the abbot of a famous Chinese Zen monastery for a short visit. Having just returned from a trip out of town, the abbot had taken an hour out of his very busy and exhausting schedule to meet us. He could have made small talk and sent us on our way, but instead he sought to connect to this important group of Zen worthies by speaking directly to the heart of the matter, by talking about an important Zen insight to these long-time practitioners. I think he surprised the group, or at least he surprised me, by stating openly that Zen did not subscribe to Marxist “dialectical materialist” philosophy. He also said that contrary to widespread belief, Zen also did not subscribe to the opposite philosophical idea, the philosophy of the mind called “idealism” in traditional Western philosophy. Instead, he said, Zen is based on the perception that the nature of the mind cannot be known in any philosophical way. The way that Zen views things is “not material, not mind, things not separate, things not united. Not one, not two.” Awakening, the abbot said, was of a place beyond all such categories, in fact liberated from such categories, and it might come about suddenly. The abbot went on to explain that the methods Mazu and others sometimes employed, like blows and shouts, must be understood in context. “Such methods can’t just be taken up randomly,” the abbot said. “You can’t just take some ignorant person and hit them or shout at them and expect anything to come of it. People subject to this sort of behavior must be ready for it, perhaps through long meditation and study. They must be prepared for this experience for it to have any meaning.”

  Another aspect of the antinomian idea relates to how Zen masters treated sentient life. I know of two old stories where Zen teachers are said to have intentionally killed other beings. In one story a Zen master kills a snake in the garden. But the most famous such story is about Mazu’s disciple Nanquan, and in my view the incident involved was not “antinomian ” at all, but a purposeful teaching about a vitally important Zen principle, taught with an extreme example of violating the precept against taking life. That story is entitled “Nanquan Kills the Cat,” and is recorded in Zen records as follows:The monks of the temple were arguing about a cat. Nanquan picked it up and, brandishing a knife, said to the monks, “Say the appropriate word, and you’ll save the cat. If you don’t say it, the cat gets cut in two!”

  The monks were silent. Nanquan cut the cat in two.

  Later, Zhaozhou returned from outside the temple, and Nanquan told him what had happened. Zhaozhou then removed his sandals, placed them on his head, and left.

  Nanquan called after him, “If you had been there, the cat would have been saved!”

  First of all, this classic Zen story could be considered exhibit A for demonstrating how Zen’s down-to-earth and personal stories often appear, on their face, utterly stupid and illogical. Taken alone and out of context, such stories seem totally bizarre. But in the proper context, when they are personalized for the reader or listener, their meaning becomes clear, and their wisdom is conveyed.

  We don’t know for certain whether this incident actually occurred or was created later to make a point. Certainly if it describes a real event, it is an especially asto
nishing story. Nanquan, a great Zen master, appears to willfully kill an innocent sentient being because his students couldn’t say an “appropriate word.” What the hell could this mean?

  Simply put, matters of life and death depend on our ability and willingness to acknowledge and speak the truth. Whether we’re talking about ninth-century China or our twenty-first-century world, life-and-death matters require that we see the truth for what it is and then speak immediately and truthfully about what we see. This might be called the social aspect of Bodhidharma’s “observing.”

  When Nanquan’s student Zhaozhou, the same Zhaozhou famous for the mu koan previously mentioned, placed his sandals on his head and walked out of the room, he really demonstrated transcendent understanding. But how?

  Zhaozhou’s action had two essential aspects. On the one hand, he “went out,” demonstrating that it is the one who stands outside the wheel of birth and death, the one who in both a symbolic and literal sense goes out—that is, “leaves home”—who can best speak the “appropriate word.” When the Great Lie is promulgated, it’s the one who has not accepted its definitions, the one who isn’t invested in the lie, who can speak clearly and with authority to expose it. Zhaozhou also put his sandals on his head. This just reinforces the previous point, for it is the one who is not in a defined position, someone whose shoes are not positioned where the world has defined them as appropriate, who can and must speak the word required to save life.

  All Zen koans teach about something very close to us. They are personal. This story, like all Zen stories, is about something so close we tend to overlook it. Buddhist monks are home-leavers and, at least in the ancient world if not the modern world, their views commanded some respect simply because people knew they didn’t speak from a position of personal self-interest.