UnMind 72. Finding Your Way Trio 3: Dhyanayana III

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Rinzai or Soto?
It does not make much diff’rence —
if you are sincere.

In the last segment, we ended with Matsuoka Roshi’s cautionary tale about overreacting to the menu of Zen and other meditation teachers on offer today:

In all the world now there are many genuine teachers and many more pretenders. The popular Zen teachers of today may fade in a year or two.

He goes on to point out that with Master Dogen, and other teachers in the so-called unbroken face-to-face lineage from Shakyamuni on down, many of their stories are subject to revisionist history, which further amplifies his point on history as a great deceiver:

Of course, if you were a slightly dishonest scholar of the Sung era who wanted to justify the Lin Chi sect’s use of koans, it would be handy to make a venerable canon testify to that prior practice. This story, and that of Dogen, are just two specifics from modern Zen research to remind you to distrust historians a little. With bad information, it is easier to let yourself believe some embellished legends, and then wonder why they do not make sense in your own life.

Why should the history of Zen Buddhism be any different, after all? As soon as any record is written down, as usual by the victors, it is subject to error, intentional or accidental. While we have the ideal of the separation of church and state as a contemporary meme, it was not always so. Those who do not study history may be doomed to repeat it, but we cannot take for granted that the written record is any more than an approximation of what actually happened, and why. The who, how, where and when are often questionable as well. Not to be too paranoid, but Zen Mind is one of few things we can trust:

There is of course a second thing to distrust. There is nothing that is static, so do not look for an unchanging Zen tradition any more than you would look for an unchanging you. In examining Zen as it has been taught in all the different times and places in the last 2,500 years or so, the form has changed, and changed, and changed again. The original vinaya, or monastic rules, as set down by Shakyamuni Buddha to his disciples are no longer all practiced in the monasteries of modern China and Japan, and yet, the Zen practice is as authentic as the first practice of the historic Buddha.

Here is a fundamental koan on the history of Zen: its form changes but its essence does not. It is based on the innate quality of the buddha, or awakened, nature, as being natural, the birthright of all humans. The method, that is the only concrete thing that is transmitted in Zen, is what fosters this realization. It does not matter, in this sense, what the historical details really were. We do not claim the performance of miracles, for instance, other than awakening to the miracle of existence itself.

After going into tighter focus on the history of Zen in 9th century China, mentioning some of the standout “monsters” of Zen, as we like to refer to them, and remarking their differences, Sensei includes verbal and visual pedagogy:

Each of the three schools [Ikyo; Ummon Zen; and Hogen Zen sects] was based upon meditation practice and upon the use of verbal or diagrammatic means to reveal the light of inherent wisdom. Wei Yang of Ikyo Zen and his disciples used a series of circular figures that they would draw in the sand. By means of these illustrations and the terse descriptions that accompanied them, and by question-and-answer, called “mondo,” the Ikyo masters worked for the liberation of their disciples.

Socrates was not the only master innovating non-traditional teaching approaches. We are challenged to do likewise today.

Wrapping up his brief survey of this century-plus of Ch’an, Sensei summarizes:

Of the five schools of Zen, these three vanished. What is ironic is that Yun Men, founder of the Ummon sect, was the most popular of all the founders of the five houses of Zen in that century. And yet, the Ummon sect vanished. The two Chinese houses of Zen that lasted, and later crossed the shore to Japan, were Rinzai and Soto. These two I will discuss in a little more depth.

Matsuoka Roshi, like many of the early pioneers of Zen in America, was steeped in the history of Zen, developing a near-encyclopedic memory of teachings and the exchanges between the great ancestors. But for our immediate ancestors, the history of Zen was inseparable from the history of the country, Japan, itself. In our case, they may appear as interesting — if somewhat irrelevant — stories from a remote part of the world. Imagine what it would be like if they were intertwined with the story of America, from its founding to the Revolution, and the subsequent establishment of the Republic. Master George Washington. Fully enlightened Thomas Jefferson, Zenji. James Madison, dai osho. John Adams, Roshi. Brother Ben Franklin, that iconoclast rogue monk. Householders all. But I digress:

The Master I Hsuan (Gigen in Japanese) of Lin Chi Temple is credited with being the founder of the Lin Chi or Rinzai Zen sect. Lin Chi, as I Hsuan is also known, was a very intense, driven and severe disciple of Huang Po (Obaku Kiun in Japanese). He used beatings, shouting and other severe discipline in conjunction with koan practice to open the eyes of his followers. Although others before Lin Chi used these methods, under Lin Chi’s guidance, they became a most skillful means of teaching to obtain immediate enlightenment. Lin Chi also discoursed on more doctrinal issues, like the four propositions of Indian Buddhist logic; but such discussions were the common interest of Zen disciples in China at the beginning of the Five Dynasties period. Despite his strict and somewhat brutal methods, Lin Chi was also well able to discourse on the dharma in public debate, a teaching method now sometimes called “dharma combat.” After Lin Chi, however, the teaching style of the sect became more formalized, and less spontaneous. Nonetheless, it has proved itself to be a vital and effective teaching.

Where others see and tend to stress difference over sameness — the current political term of art being “divisiveness” — Sensei, and Zen teachers in general, tend to stress sameness over difference. The ultimate resolution of this binary is found in Sekito Kisen’s Sandokai — Harmony of Sameness and Difference. Matsuoka Roshi had friends who were priests in the Rinzai sect, one of whom visited the Zen Buddhist Temple of Chicago, and was the guest speaker. Since it was in Japanese, I do not remember the content. But afterward, if memory serves, we began striking both shoulders with the kyosaku, the “wake-up” stick, instead of only the right shoulder. Sitting with a Rinzai group in Japan in 1987, I asked for the stick, and they struck down the back on both sides of the spine, rather than on the shoulders. I suspect that Matsuoka Roshi adopted the double strike as an influence of Rinzai, but do not know for sure.

He goes on to compare Rinzai with Soto, the tradition in which he trained at Sojiji, Keizan’s monastery:

The original Ts’ao Tung sect does not bear much resemblance to the modern Soto sect. In fact, old Lin Chi Zen is closer to modern Rinzai than Ts’ao Tung is to modern Soto. The masters Liang Chiai of Tung Shan monastery, and Pen Chi of Ts’ao Shan monastery are credited as being cofounders of the Soto sect, although Liang Chiai died thirty-one years before Pen Chi. Again the main practice was zazen, but the “finger pointing to the moon of enlightenment” took the form of the teaching of the five ranks.
The five ranks were a system of symbols used to differentiate among the levels of enlightenment. The ranks were the prince; the minister; the prince looking at the minister; the minister returning to the prince; and the prince and minister in harmony. Additionally, the idea of “host and guest” were used interchangeably with those of the “prince and minister.” Circular symbols in black and white as well as kua from the I Ching were also used to try to communicate this abstruse and complicated scheme of teaching. As those of you who have practiced Soto Zen know, we do not discuss the five ranks. Instead, we practice zazen-only Zen.

So here we find the reduction to zazen-only, the hallmark of simplicity of Soto praxis. Tozan’s Five Ranks constitute one of many such models that the ancestors designed to help their students visualize the big picture, while putting their main effort into the reality before their faces. The next sentence is a classic of stating the obvious, but with the resonance of Zen’s encompassing worldview:

Time passed, and change occurred. The Soto and Rinzai sects also changed. By the middle of the twelfth century AD, Rinzai had become the more popular Chinese Chan sect. The koan system became a regular feature of Rinzai practice. The word “koan” (kung-an in Chinese) translated literally means a “public case,” in this instance a public discussion of the truth of Zen. The koan were alogical problems which were given to disciples to solve. The solution of the koan could only be arrived at with an experience of satori, or some realization of enlightenment.

Sensei goes on to demystify this thing, the koan, explaining that,

…no intellectual solution to the koan is acceptable to the Rinzai masters because mental antics or logic are the chatter of the superficial self. Only after a hundred and eight thousand or more surface mind answers is the logical mind brought to a frustrated impasse. Then, and most suddenly at that moment, the eye of enlightenment sees with all certainty the solution to the koan.

Sensei traces the origin of the schism that developed between the two systems:

Two great Zen masters lived in the twelfth century China: Rinzai Master, Ta Hui (1189–1163 AD) and Soto Master, Tien T’ung (1091–1157 AD). These two contemporaries criticized each other’s version of Zen teaching. You will hear their positions repeated today, so it is instructive to know what they said.

And concludes his gloss on the history with a reconciliation of the conflict on the personal level:

When Tien T’ung died, his Rinzai dharma combatant, Ta Hui, hastened to attend his funeral rites. Soto and Rinzai Zen of the Sung dynasty ending time is fairly much how Rinzai and Soto are practiced today.

Puts one in mind of other famous contemporaries and their deaths, such as Huineng and Shenxui, of the so-called Southern and Northern schools of Ch’an. And, more recently, that of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who famously passed within hours of each other on July 4th, 1826.

Sensei then brings us to our present lineage founder:

It was not too long after Tien T’ung’s death that Dogen Zenji was born in 1200 AD in Japan.

We will not be able to fully cover this in-depth exegesis on the ways of Zen in the time we have available. I will share a few of the nuggets, with the hope that you will follow by studying the whole chapter and book. In concluding his remarks on Soto versus Rinzai pedagogy, Sensei uses some striking imagery:

Rinzai Zen moves from the outer world to the inner world like a fearless hunter questing for an elusive quarry. If, however, you can understand… Dogen’s “practice and enlightenment are the same”; and my “Five minutes of practice, five minutes a Buddha!”; you will know that Soto is just the opposite Zen of Rinzai.
The original nature is already present and shining… In Soto Zen, when we sit, we let this original nature shine as it is. When we simply stop interfering, this original nature will melt all our hardness; will untangle our confusion; will blunt all our sharp and jutting angles; and will balance us perfectly without any effort of the small self directing an assault on the great and enlightened self.
I think that this sudden enlightenment of the old Rinzai masters seemed so sudden because the way of koan inquiry into the original nature is not the way that the original nature is and acts. The practice of koan Zen applies an extra and angular energy to the primal radiant nature. It pits the small self’s desire for peace and harmony with all its own turbulence against the great and silent original mind. Only when the Rinzai practitioner succeeds in exerting a 180 degree polar opposite and artificial energy, does the seat of consciousness turn about on its axis. Suddenly, like two out-of-phase magnets that flip and lock together with inseparable force, the original nature and worldly nature become one, fused inseparably. It seems sudden and violent because koan Zen moves against the outward and outpouring current of radiant enlightenment.
All the while, the gradual Soto practice of zazen allows the original nature to dissolve the small, suffering and separated self, breath by breath. The end result does not seem, perhaps, as striking; but it is more sure as a Dhyanayana. No matter whether gradual or sudden, first remembering, then bringing the enlightened nature back into pre-eminence is the way of Zen.

Sensei concludes with an exhortation for Americans to practice the gentler approach of Soto Zen:

Today, I can absolutely recommend Soto Zen to you as the upaya and Dhyanayana of our time. If you are half-hearted, it will produce no ill effects; and, in fact, will improve some areas of your life physiologically, emotionally, or mentally. If you are sincere and determined to the end, Soto Zen will lead you surely, safely, and most harmoniously, to the supreme realization and to the subtlest Samadhi in this life.

Note the definition of zazen Samadhi as the “subtlest,” Master Dogen’s “fine mind of Samadhi,” or “subtle mind of Samadhi.”

Please take Sensei’s compassionate plea to heart. Just sit still enough, long enough, to let your true colors come shining through.