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She Who Laughs Loudest: a Meditation on Zen Humor Andrew Whitehead Kennesaw State University, [email protected]

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She Who Laughs Loudest: a Meditation on Zen Humor Andrew Whitehead Kennesaw State University, Awhiteh8@Kennesaw.Edu Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective Volume 9 Article 4 Number 1 Interdisciplinary Reflections on Japan March 2015 She Who Laughs Loudest: A Meditation on Zen Humor Andrew Whitehead Kennesaw State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/jgi Part of the Asian Studies Commons, International Relations Commons, and the Peace and Conflict Studies Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Whitehead, Andrew (2015) "She Who Laughs Loudest: A Meditation on Zen Humor," Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective: Vol. 9 : No. 1 , Article 4. Available at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/jgi/vol9/iss1/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Andrew K. Whitehead Journal of Global Initiatives Vol. 9, No. 1, 2014, pp. 27-36 She Who Laughs Loudest: A Meditation on Zen Humor Andrew K. Whitehead Kennesaw State University Articulating a Zen Buddhist perspective on humor, this paper examines the Japanese Zen Buddhist response of humor in the face of the suffering of situated existence and the motivations for this response. The examination will take the school of Rinzai Zen Buddhism as its exemplar. I argue that in order to appreciate the function of humor in Zen a number of cultural and historical influences must be considered: correlative ontology; the Buddhist notion of emptiness; the impotence of language; sense and nonsense; and the senselessness of transgression. The following paper aims to examine the Japanese Zen Buddhist response of humor in the face of the suffering of situated existence and the motivations for this response. The examination will take the school of Rinzai Zen Buddhism as its exemplar. It is an essay of five parts. In order to appreciate the function of humor in Zen a number of cultural and historical influences must be considered: correlative ontology; the Buddhist notion of emptiness; the impotence of language; sense and nonsense; and the senselessness of transgression. A few provisos before beginning: the trajectory of the argument presented here entertains and delimits connections between the humorous and the senseless on the grounds of the limits of meaning found in selected literature from the history of Zen Buddhism. It is my intention to present a framework through which the perpetuation of suffering that lies at the heart of the Buddhist tradition can be re-imagined and re-engaged lightly, loftily, and humorously. Through an appreciation of the conceptual undermining of Buddhist emptiness, it is possible to counterbalance the seriousness of situated existence with humor. It is possible to laugh in the face of it all. It is also important that I concede at the outset how utterly non-humorous the following treatment of humor is. I agree with Hans-Georg Moeller’s observation of the unfortunate fact that “to philosophize about laughter is usually quite unfunny” (2010, p. 9). It is first worth offering gratitude to those who have impressively engaged the traditions of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism and teased out a number of the functions and specific instances of humor in the canon. It is especially worth mentioning the work of Conrad Hyers, who in many ways served as a trailblazer for this line of enquiry. His belief that the comic spirit of Zen arises out of the abrupt collision of Indian spiritualism and the earthiness of the Chinese remains a powerful and persuasive one (Hyers, 1974, p. 24). As Buddhism finds its way from India into China, it is conspicuous how quickly the very strict regulations concerning bodily displays of good humor are laid by the wayside in order to better articulate the Chinese worldview. Hotei, the laughing heavy-set incarnation of 28 Journal of Global Initiatives Maitreya Buddha, serves as a case in point. This trend is promoted and consequently accelerates as Zen Buddhism moves from China into Japan. It is in the early schools of Zen Buddhism that we first come to encounter true Buddhist clowns. These clowns are not to be confused with lowbrow, base, and boorish buffoons. They are not instances of “the clown as some inferior species, approaching the infantile or subhuman or chaotic,” but instances of “the clown who in all his lowliness and simplicity and childlikeness, as well as in his iconoclasm and redemptive profanity, is truly great, truly profound, truly free” (Hyers, 1974, p. 30). The celebration of the lowly, the simple, and the childlike serve to reinforce Hyers’ belief that the earthiness of “Oriental Humanism,” and the influences of Daoism in particular, give way to the comic spirit of Zen, thereby elevating the playful and the humorous to the great, the profound, and the free. Zen’s self-descriptions are such that they promote themselves as playfully serious, and as seriously playful. The doctrine beyond words and letters becomes something of a Marx Brothers production, showing what can’t be said, and insisting that one forget the finger and look to the moon with a quick poke in the eye. Hyers describes Zen less crassly: [Zen] is like a man up a tree who hangs on a branch by his teeth with his hands and feet in the air. A man at the foot of the tree asks him, “What is the point of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?” If he does not answer he would seem to evade the question. If he answers he would fall to his death. (1974, p. 32) This remains the precarious position of Zen Buddhism, perhaps the only spiritual school that advises one to kill its namesake, that depicts conflict resolution as tearing a cat in half, and that celebrates the tremendous insight displayed by placing a sandal on one’s head. The seriousness and appropriateness of such disarming humor can only be ascertained with a correct understanding of the correlative ontology espoused by Zen Buddhism and the subsequent anti-essentialist connotations of the Buddhist theory of emptiness as it is taken up in China and Japan. Correlative Ontology: Funny Is As Funny Does Zen humor is serious. It is as serious as Hegel or Kant. According to Moeller, “In Zen Buddhism the outburst of laughter as such is physically, emotionally, and socially applied philosophy. It is not an exaggeration to say that in Zen Buddhism laughter can be deemed a more appropriate philosophical practice than, for instance, writing or lecturing—or even thinking” (2010, p. 9). The embodied nature of social relations facilitates an affective transmission, which instructs and edifies in ways that language is unable to accomplish on its own. This remains equally true of texts that describe such relations. One need only consider the story of the dying Zen master as evidence in support of this claim: A Zen master lay dying. His monks had all gathered around his bed, from the most senior to the most novice monk. The senior monk leaned over to ask the dying master if he had any final words of advice for his monks. The old master slowly opened his eyes and in a weak voice whispered, “Tell them Truth is like a river.” The senior monk passed on this bit of wisdom in turn to the monk next to him, and it circulated around the room from one monk to another. When the words reached the youngest monk he asked, “What does he Andrew K. Whitehead 29 mean, ‘Truth is like a river?’” The question was passed back around the room to the senior monk who leaned over the bed and asked, “Master, what do you mean, ‘Truth is like a river?’” Slowly the master opened his eyes and in a weak voice whispered, “OK, truth is not like a river.” (Hyers, 1989, p. 271) In order to make sense of this “joke,” we must first come to terms with the background of its punch line, and how the inclusion of the master-disciple relation facilitates the transmission of a rather complex philosophical idea. To begin with, regarding “river,” it is at once both like truth and not like truth. The punch line builds on what is perhaps one of the most famous Zen sayings, which is often ascribed to Qingyuan Weixin: Before a man studies Zen, to him mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after he gets an insight into the truth of Zen through the instruction of a good master, mountains to him are not mountains and waters are not waters; but after this when he really attains to the abode of rest, mountains are once more mountains and waters are waters. (Suzuki, 1949, p. 24) These three stages of development within Zen are all drawn upon in the story, highlighting the existential predicament of the Zen practitioner who is always being thrown back into the world, back into their ill-fated (disastrous) situated existence. The Zen master initially communicates his having attained the abode of rest by likening truth to a river only to concede his ongoing education through the insight that truth is not like a river. This concession promotes his function as master insofar as it instructs his young disciples who remain convinced of the truth of rivers, and not the likeness of truth to the truth of the river. The story highlights the paradoxical interconnection of the truth of the river and the non- truth of the river, and how both can be thought to be rightly ascribable to “river.” While the intellect is unable to resolve successfully such a logical tension, the initial recognition of its failings and shortcomings is shown as a necessary step in both calming the mind and seeking the truth elsewhere.
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