Snuffed Out! Extinguished!

On Case 28 from the Gateless Gate

 

Tokusan’s Turning

Susan Ji-on Postal

June 21, 2009

                                                                             

 

Introduction:

Sometimes Nirvana is translated as “extinguished”; sometimes it is described as being one with an ocean of dazzling light. Sometimes realization is expressed as the utter darkness of not knowing; sometimes awakening is talked about as a process of illumination, of seeing more clearly.

 

Today, we will step into the realm of sudden darkness and great release as we enter the famous koan from the Gateless Gate, case 28, in which Tokusan experiences a great turning and meets his teacher, Master Ryutan.

 

The Case:

            One night Tokusan persisted in asking Ryutan for instruction. Ryutan finally said, “The night

            is late. Why don’t you go to bed?” Tokusan thanked him, made his bows, raised the door curtain

            and left. Seeing how dark the night was, he turned back and said, “It’s pitch black outside.”

            Ryutan lit a lantern and handed it to Tokusan. Just as Tokusan reached for it, Ryutan blew it out.

            At that Tokusan came to sudden realization and made a deep bow.

 

            Ryutan asked, “What have you realized?” Tokusan replied, “From now on, I will not doubt the

            words of an old master who is renowned everywhere under the sun.” The following day Ryutan

            ascended the rostrum and declared, “There is a man among you whose fangs are like trees of

            swords...Strike him and he won’t turn his head. Someday he will settle on top of an isolated

            peak and establish our Way there.”

 

            Tokusan brought his sutra commentaries to the front of the hall, held up a torch and said, “ Even

            though we have exhausted abstruse doctrine, it is like placing a hair in vast space. Even though

            we have learned the vital points of all the truths in the world, it is like a drop of water thrown into

            a deep ravine.” He then burned all his manuscripts. After making his bows, he left.

 

There was high drama both that day and the night before. Where we need to actually enter Tokusan’s journey, however, is in what happened before these two dramatic scenes, before the blowing out of the lantern and the burning up of his manuscripts. It seems there was a readiness in this monk — it seems that he was close to cracking open prior to his arrival at Ryutan’s monastery, or this never would have happened.

 

Priest Tokusan lived around 850 in the north of China where the Chan, or Zen, school was not prominent. His intense Buddhist studies led him to become a specialist in the Diamond Sutra. In fact, his nickname was “Shu-Kongo-O” — “Shu” was his family name, “Kongo” means “diamond,” and “O” is “king.” So he was called the “King of the Diamond Sutra,” and he had quite a wide reputation for knowing and understanding this sutra completely. He confidently traveled around giving talks and writing commentaries on it.

 

According to the Buddhism he studied, an incalculable period of time is needed for an ordinary man to become a Buddha. When he heard that the Chan, or Zen, tradition taught that becoming Buddha can happen instantaneously, Tokusan found this to be utter nonsense. He is believed to have said, “if this is Zen, then Zen is not Buddhism, it must be the teaching of the devils.” This so upset Tokusan that he decided to set out for the south, declaring “I am going to the south where this Zen is flourishing and destroy it by my wonderful, kingly arguments.”

 

He packed up a cart, for he had more papers than he could carry on his back, a whole cart of all the notes and commentaries he would need to refute Zen, and headed south. At this point, where do you think his mind was? He was overflowing with self-assurance; he thought knew what was true. It also appears that he was actually angry towards the Zen tradition flourishing in the south. He had heard that those southern Zen teachers said that their practice was “beyond words and letters.” From their point of view, his scholarly learning was seen as rather useless. This no doubt triggered some defensiveness and a strong determination to prove them wrong, to “vanquish the foe.” Haven’t we all done this, in some way or another—set off to set someone straight, to make our point, to prove ourselves right?

 

Well, something happened on his way. He got hungry, and stopped at a little snack shop run by an old woman — but not a very ordinary old woman. You know, we do not have many female ancestors recorded in our lineage charts, but the koan collections give us several stories of the wise women who were met along the road. Anyway, Tokusan asks her for a “tenjin” which, as it happens, is a word with two very different meanings — either “something to eat,” a sweet snack, or “pointing to the mind.” There seems no doubt that he was actually a hungry traveler who asked for a bit to eat, but the old woman answered him as follows:

 

            Your reverence, what are you carrying in that cart?” He told her proudly, “These are notes and commentaries on the Diamond Sutra.” “Is that so?” the old women said, “then I would like to ask you a

            question. If you can answer it, I’ll treat you to a tenjin. If not, I won’t even let you buy one.” The old

            woman said, “In that sutra, it says the past mind can’t be caught; the present mind can’t be caught,

            the future mind can’t be caught. Your Reverence, with which mind are you going to take the tenjin?”

           

Tokusan was dumbstruck. None of the written commentaries in his cart were of any use at all. The greatest living specialist on the Diamond Sutra could not answer a question put to him by an old woman in a snack shop. It seems that at this point we begin to see the cracking of Tokusan’s pride. His conviction that “I know what is true” began to crumble. We are not told whether or not he ever got something to eat, but we are told that he asked, “Is there a Zen master near here?” Some teachers suggest that, although it isn’t quoted it the recorded text, he may actually have asked, “Who is your teacher?” She replied that Master Ryutan lives about five ri (a few miles) away. So Tokusan with his over-stuffed cart headed off to Ryutan’s monastery.

Ryutan’s name reflects his unusual capacity as a Zen Master. “Ryu” means “dragon” and “tan” means “deep water.” Perhaps you remember hearing in Dogen’s Fukanzazengi that our awakening is like the dragon reaching the water, being at home in its own element. In another writing, Dogen talks about a “Dragon Singing in a Withered Tree.” When everything is stripped away—all attachments and decorations completely gone — then the dragon sings, then great awakening is directly expressed. We too have a Zen dragon in our immediate lineage — Darlene’s teacher, and our friend and mentor, Michael Wenger, is named Dairyu or Great Dragon. So Ryutan is a strong and descriptive name for a Zen master.

 

We are told that at the gate of the monastery Tokusan calls out loudly, “I have heard about Ryutan for a long time, but arriving I can find neither dragon nor water,” implying some criticism and judgment. Master Ryutan, apparently a little fellow, is said to have peeked through a crack in the gate and said, “You have come to Ryutan here.” Thus acknowledging that Tokusan had arrived and that dragon and deep water are present. And that very day they began to talk, and that evening the light was blown out! The very next day Tokusan took everything that he treasured most in the world, everything in that cart he had been dragging all over China, and burned it.

 

Now of course the Diamond Sutra is filled with great wisdom, great truth, and from a certain point of view we might think how wasteful that he burned all his writings on this great sutra. Couldn’t he have used this material later on?? Maybe theoretically this is true, but for Tokusan at that moment, what was needed was complete physical letting go, with no holding back.

Do you think I might ask our Dennis to burn all his carefully arranged notebooks with various translations of the Heart Sutra? Would it be helpful to him to crumble up and destroy all the material he has collected to teach this upcoming class? Don’t think so. I can assure you that the problem of attaching to and identifying with knowledge is being constantly worked on with his teacher. In Tokusan’s case, I see the burning up of everything he had previously defended as a great and deep bow, a bow to his new master, a bow of complete surrender.

 

And for us, can we see what we are carrying around? Our own “cart” is filled with the stories that we have come to believe in, plus our own commentaries on our stories, including, perhaps, some experience of “shifts” or “openings” which have come through our practice. Even if there is some truth there, some validity, the problem is in the carrying. Can you see how we have a sense that this little wagon we pull along is rightfully ours, ours to wheel along and ours to keep filling and maybe even to decorate! So how to have fresh, clean, clear mind with no baggage. How to dare to enter the darkness of not knowing, of no longer carrying, of being truly empty handed?

 

Aitken Roshi is one of the teachers who suggests that it is in the dialogue with the old woman where Tokusan has a turning moment. He didn’t defend himself when he could not answer her questions, he simply asked for a Zen teacher. He was ready to receive. I think this makes sense; a good lesson for all of us. Aitken states:

 

            If your defenses are impervious, no one can get in—and you can’t get out. There is no fissure through

            which your vine of life can find its way to the sunshine.

 

I really like that image, “your vine of life.” We have to have cracks if we are going to grow. I think we can see that by the time Tokusan reached Master Ryutan he was standing in a very different place than the arrogant know-it-all who angrily set out for the south. Can you see that this turning did not happen by his decision, by his will, but rather was set in motion by the wise teachings of the Diamond Sutra itself? The words of the sutra—having no past, present or future mind which can be caught - did their work, pierced right through and let in some light.

 

In the preface to his translation of the Diamond Sutra, Red Pine writes:

 

 

            The Diamond Sutra may look like a book, but it is really the body of the Buddha. It’s also your body,

            my body, all possible bodies. But it’s a body with nothing inside and nothing outside, It doesn’t exist

            in space and time. Nor is it a construct of the mind. It’s no mind. And because it is no mind, it has room

            for compassion. This book is the offering of no-mind, born of compassion for all suffering beings. Of all

            the sutras that teach this teaching, this is the diamond. It cuts through all delusions, illuminates what is

            real, and cannot be destroyed. It is the path on which all buddhas stand and walk. And to read it is to

            stand and walk with buddhas.

 

I would suggest that we can see this whole case as being about the functioning of the truth of this Diamond, how it does its cutting. The Dharma does turn us, often when we least expect it. Priest Tokusan’s veneer of pride and attachment was pierced by the actual content of what he was carrying around and defending. Amazing! And then, with the help of the wise master, the lantern is blown out and in that utter darkness nothing is seen as separate in the whole universe. All dualities have been completely snuffed out, extinguished.

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

references:

Yamada, Koun, The Gateless Gate, Center Publications, 1979

Aitken, Robert, The Gateless Barrier, North Point, 1990

Red Pine, The Diamond Sutra, Counterpoint, 2001