Like and Dislike - The Blue Cliff Record Case 2

What Does the Blue Cliff Record teach us about Like and dislike, about Picking and Choosing?

Here is Joshu in Case 2

MAIN CASE

Chao Chou, teaching the assembly, said The Ultimate Path is without difficulty, it just avoids picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken ‘this’ is picking and choosing ‘that’ is clarity. This old monk does not abide within clarity "Do you still preserve anything or not?"

At that time a certain monk asked, "Since you do not abide within clarity, what do you preserve?"

Chao Chou replied, "I don’t know either."

The monk said, "Since you don’t know, Teacher, why do you nevertheless say that you do not abide within clarity?"

Chao Chou said, "It is enough to ask, make your bows and withdraw."

"Chao Chou, teaching the assembly, said." Yuan Wu comments, "What’s the old fellow doing?" Chao Chou did not start teaching until he was 80 years old. That is almost sixty years of polishing and deepening his realization after his initial awakening. Anyone interested in Zen ought to perk up like Yuan Wu, "Shhh, the old fellow is speaking…"

"‘The Ultimate Path is without difficulty.’" Yuan Wu comments, "Not hard, not easy."

Once the Layman P’ang was sitting in his cottage with his wife and daughter:
"Difficult, difficult, difficult," he suddenly exclaimed, "[like trying] to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree!"

"Easy, easy, easy," returned Mrs. P’ang, "just like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed."

Neither difficult nor easy," said Liang-chao. "On the hundred grass-tips, the Patriarchs’ meaning."
A Man of Zen, Sasaki, Iriya, Fraser

If Liang-chao and Yuan Wu are right, what about the layman and his wife? What about Chao Chou?

Leaving aside difficult and easy, what is the Ultimate Path, sometimes translated as the Great Way? Is it Buddha Dharma? Is it Tao? A monk asked Chao Chou about that:

The master said, "It’s just outside the fence."
The monk said, "I’m not asking about that."
The master said, "What ‘way’ are you asking about?"
The monk said, "The Great Way."
The master said, "The great way leads all the way to the capital."
The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu, James Green, p.108

He says outside the fence, what about inside the fence?

"It just avoids picking and choosing." In case 2 of the Mumonkan, we learn how old Pai Chang’s five hundred lifetimes as a fox became lives of grace when he was avoided picking and choosing.

One time Chao Chou revealed his own fox-nature while he was walking with an official in a garden and they saw a rabbit run away.
The official said, "you are a great and accomplished person, why did the rabbit run away when it saw you?"
The master said, "I like to kill."
The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu, p. 151

Chao Chou’s words seem incredible. However, if you can see the rabbit here, you will have mastered this case.

"As soon as there are words spoken." Chao Chou is setting out a pot of glue; it is hard to avoid being stuck here. What if words are not spoken?

Venerable Pi Mo Yen of Wu T’ai Shan Monastery used to carry a wooden pitchfork with him. Every time he saw a monk approaching him and bowing down for instruction, he pinned him by the neck with the fork and demanded, "What devil forced you to renounce the world (by becoming a monk)? What devil made you wander on pilgrimage? If you can say a word of Ch’an under the fork, you will die. If you can’t say a word of Ch’an under the fork, you will die. Now! Say something!"
There were few students who were able to respond to this demand.
The Transmission Of The Lamp, Sohaku Ogata, p.370

He does not say there were none who were able to respond, just that there were few. Have you seen Hsueh Tou’s comment on case 23?
"Today what is the purpose of travelling the mountains with these fellows" He also said, "Hundreds of thousands of years hence, I don’t say there are none, just that they will be few."

"This is picking and choosing." As soon as there are words spoken, "this" is picking and choosing. What is "this?" This is it. Does "it" go along with picking and choosing? Look at case 29.

A monk asked Ta Sui, "The conflagration at the end of the eon sweeps through and the universe is totally destroyed. I wonder, is this destroyed or not?"
Sui said, "It is destroyed."
The monk said, "If so, then this goes along with it."
Sui said, "It goes along with it."
Blue Cliff Record, Case 29

Is the "this" in this is picking and choosing "it?" The Ultimate Path is without difficulty; "it" just avoids picking and choosing. Could we re-phrase this, "The Ultimate Path avoids picking and choosing; it is just without difficulty"?

Dogen likes to remind us that nonduality is really nondual. Listen as he comments on the line, "In following worldly circumstances there are no hindrances", from a poem by the Layman Cho Setsu:
To turn one’s back on the Truth is wrong, and to approach the Truth is also wrong. The Truth is the approaching and the turning away, which, in each instance of approaching or turning away, are the Truth itself. Is there anyone who knows that this wrong is also the Truth?
Shobogenzo, Kuge, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross

Can we put this koan in the format of Dogen’s comment? Picking and choosing is wrong, and not being without difficulty is also wrong. The Ultimate Path is without difficulty and avoids picking and choosing, which, in each instance of without difficulty or avoiding picking and choosing is the Ultimate Path itself. Is there anyone who knows that this wrong is also the Ultimate Path?

"That is clarity." He said that "this" was picking and choosing; now he says "that" is clarity! What is going on here? Yuan Wu says, "People these days who practice meditation and ask about the Path, if they do not remain within picking and choosing, then they settle down within clarity." He means both remaining and settling down are wrong. How can we respond to the implicit challenge here?

What is not remaining? The Diamond Sutra says, "If Bodhisattvas practice giving charity with their minds not dwelling on things, they are like people with sight in the sunlight, seeing all sorts of shapes and colors." (T. Cleary)

What is not settling down? The Diamond Sutra says, "Dwell nowhere and bring forth that mind." (Misc. Koans)

"This old monk does not abide within clarity." He says he’s not settling down, and he demonstrates he’s not remaining.

"Do you still preserve anything or not?" This is Chao Chou’s reason for all his words; he is, after all, teaching the assembly. "Do you understand?" he asks. "My presentation about the third ancestors message is, this old monk does not abide within clarity. How would you say it?"

There is a dialogue where Tung Shan responds for a monk who was asked a similar question from an opposing point.
A monk asked, "What is the talk on no-talk?"
The Master {Pao Yun} asked, "Where is your mouth?"
The monk answered, "I have no mouth."
The Master said, "With what do you eat your food?"
The monk had no response. Tung Shan answered for him: "He does not get hungry, why should he eat food?"
The Transmission Of The Lamp, Sohaku Ogata, p.222

"At that time a certain monk asked." We should not skip over this line. At that time a certain monk is existence-time. Dogen reminds us, "Time does not pass."

The particular time of the deity [of yesterday] is also experienced precisely as my existence-time; though it appears to be far off, it is the realized now.
Shobogenzo, Uji, Hee-Jin Kim

"Since you do not abide within clarity, what do you preserve?" This monk shows his own non-preservation. He is saying, "As soon as Chao Chou’s words are spoken, ‘this old monk does not abide within clarity’, "this" is trailing mud and dripping water." This monk is like Pao Yun’s, "With what do you eat your food?"

"Chao Chou replied, ‘I don’t know either.’" Bodhidharma said, ‘I don’t know.’ They are not different, but they are not the same either. Yuan Wu says, "Many followers of Ch’an these days will also say when asked, ‘I don’t know either; I don’t understand.’ Nevertheless, though they are on the same road, they are not in the same groove." In case 51, Yen T’ou said, "Though Hseuh Feng is born on the same lineage as me, he doesn’t die in the same lineage."

The monk said, "Since you don’t know, Teacher, why do you nevertheless say that you do not abide within clarity?" This monk was sharp, but he did not know it had been settled. There was a similar exchange between the Layman P’ang and Ma Tsu:

Layman P’ang asked, "The unveiled original man asks you to look upward, please." The Patriarch looked straight down. The layman said, "Only the Master can play so wonderfully on a stringless lute. The Patriarch looked straight up. The layman bowed, and the Patriarch returned to his quarters. The layman followed him; when he entered the room, he said, "Just now bungled it trying to be wise."
Sun Face Buddha, Cheng Chien Bhikshu

Chao Chou said, "It is enough to ask, make your bows and withdraw."

Peace,

Ted Biringer