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Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn • Page 274 © 2008 Kwan Um School of Zen • 201 The following kong-an is number nine from the Blue Cliff Records: When you have a clear mirror, the beautiful and the ugly reveal themselves. When you hold the legendary sword, you can kill or grant life, as the moment dictates. Chinese come, foreigners go: foreigners come, Chinese go. In death there is already life: in life there is already death. Now tell me, what can you do? Unless your eye can penetrate all barriers and your body is free to make any turn, you can’t do a thing. But what is this eye that can penetrate all barriers? What is this body that is free to make any turn? Read this kong-an and see: A monk asked Jo-ju, “What is Jo-ju?” Jo Ju answered, “ East Gate, West Gate, South Gate, North Gate.” Strange language. We usually think that when a man dies he is dead, and when he lives he is alive. But in this language, life is death, death is life. Where does life come from? Where does death go? Life and death are only thinking. You must go beyond life and death. That is infinite life. It is “like this.” “Like this” is Jo-Ju’s original face. Mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers: yellow is yellow, red is red. Jo-Ju’s teacher, Nam Chan, said that everyday mind is the Way. Everyday mind is the mind that cuts off all thinking. It is the same as a mirror: when the beautiful comes, it is beautiful: When the ugly comes, it is ugly. Only “like this.” Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn • Page 274 © 2008 Kwan Um School of Zen • www.kwanumzen.org 202 Zen Master Po De had a large round face and a belly like a balloon. He laughed all the time. Whatever people gave him he would put into a sack which he carried over his shoulder. Whatever people wanted he would take out of the sack and give them. He slept anywhere: indoors, outdoors, beside rivers, on top of mountains. When he slept indoors, he snored and the windows shook. When he slept outdoors, he snored and the branches trembled. Sometimes his actions were peculiar. Under a cloudless sky, he would walk with wooden shoes and an umbrella. People laughed. But soon it would begin to rain, and people understood. “Ah, that must have been Po De.” So when they saw him with wooden shoes and an umbrella, all the people would take their wooden shoes and umbrellas. And in the summer, if he wore grass shoes during a thunderstorm, all the people would put on their grass shoes because they knew that the sky would be clear soon. Po De always lived with earth and sky, with Buddha and all people. People live in nature, but they don’t understand nature. Po De lived outside nature, but he understood nature. So what is natural? Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn • Page 275 © 2008 Kwan Um School of Zen • www.kwanumzen.org 203 One Saturday evening at the Boston Dharmadhatu, Seung Sahn Soen Sa explained the Zen circle. After his talk one student asked, “Where is devotion on the circle?” Soen Sa: That is between 90° and 180°, where God exists. Name and form exist here, but the substance of all things is the same. God’s substance and my substance are the same. Ultimately, God and I are one. This is the goal of Hinayana meditation, as well as yoga and Christian and most other kinds of meditation. It does not pass 180°. Student: But if there is a Supreme Being—and I believe there is—how can there be anything beyond unity with Him? A student of Soen Sa’s: Maybe the question to ask is, is there a Supreme Being? Is that what you’re asking? Student: No, I’ve made up my mind. What I want to ask is, how can there be anything beyond a Supreme Being? I mean, maybe there’s no circle! Soen Sa: O.K., you don’t believe in the circle. That’s good, very good. I am the same. If I believe in the circle, I form an attachment to the circle. So I don’t believe in it. You and I are the same. It’s only a Zen teaching circle. An attachment to it would be very bad. Student: Would an attachment to God also be bad? Soen Sa: All attachments are bad. Student: How can it be bad? There is no bad. Soen Sa: Ah, you are a freedom man. You make bad, you make good. In original mind, there is no bad and no good. Bad and good are thinking. Student: So before thinking, there is no good or bad? Soen Sa: Yes. Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn • Page 276 © 2008 Kwan Um School of Zen • www.kwanumzen.org 204 Thirteen hundred years ago, in an ancient province of Korea, there was a great Zen Master named Won Hyo. As a young man he fought in a bloody civil war and saw many friends slaughtered and homes destroyed. He was overcome by the emptiness of this life, so he shaved his head and went to the mountains to live the life of a monk. In the mountains he read many Sutras and kept his precepts well, but still he didn’t understand the true meaning of Buddhism. Finally, since he knew that in China he might find a Zen master who could help him become enlightened, he put on his backpack and headed for the great dry Northern plains. He went on foot. He would walk all day long and rest at night. One evening, after months of walking, he stopped at a small patch of green, where there were a few trees and some water and went to sleep. Toward midnight he woke up very thirsty. It was pitch dark. He groped along on all fours searching for water. At last his hand touched a cup on the ground. He picked it up and drank. Ah, how delicious! Then he bowed deeply in gratitude to Buddha for the gift of water. The next morning he woke up and saw beside him what he had taken for a cup. It was a shattered skull, blood-caked and still with shreds of flesh stuck to the cheekbones. Strange insects crawled or floated on the surface of the filthy rain water inside it. Won Hyo looked at the skull and felt a great wave of nausea. He opened his mouth. As soon as the vomit poured out, his mind opened and he understood. Last night, since he hadn’t seen and hadn’t thought, the water was delicious. This morning, seeing and thinking had made him vomit. Ah, he said to himself, thinking makes good and bad, life and death. It creates the whole universe. It is the universal master. And without thinking, there is no universe, no Buddha, no Dharma. All is one, and this one is empty. There was no need now to find a master. Won Hyo already understood life and death. What more was there to learn? So he turned and started back across the desert to Korea. Twenty years passed. During this time Won Hyo became the most famous monk in the land. He was the trusted advisor to the great king of Silla and preceptor to the noblest and most powerful families. Whenever he gave a public lecture, the hall was packed. he lived in a beautiful temple, taught the best students, ate the best food, and slept the dreamless sleep of the just. Now at this time, in Silla, there was a very great Zen master—a little old man, with a wisp of a beard and skin like a crumpled paper bag. Barefoot and in tattered clothes he would walk through the towns ringing his bell. De an, de an, de an, de an, don’t think, de an, like this, de an, rest mind, de an, de an. Won hyo heard of him and one day hiked to the mountain cave where he lived. From a distance he could hear the sound of extraordinarily lovely chanting echoing through the valleys. But when he arrived at the cave he found the master sitting beside a dead fawn, weeping bitterly. Won Ho was dumbfounded. How could an Teaching Letters of Zen Master Seung Sahn • Page 277 © 2008 Kwan Um School of Zen • www.kwanumzen.org enlightened being be either happy or sad, since in the state of nirvana there is nothing to be happy or sad about and no one to be happy or sad? He stood speechless for a while, and then asked the master why he was weeping. The master explained. He had come upon the fawn after its mother had been killed by hunters. It was very hungry. so he had gone into town and begged for milk. Since he knew that no one would give milk for an animal, he had said it was for his son. “A monk with a son? Dirty old man!” people thought. But some gave him a little milk. He had continued this way for a month, begging enough to keep the animal alive. Then the scandal became too great, and no one would help. He had been wandering for three days now, in search of milk. At last he had found some, but when he had returned to the cave, his fawn was already dead. “You don’t understand,” said the master. “My mind and the fawn’s mind are the same.
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