The Subject Was Huang Po

[Guest guest]

The Subject Was Huang Po

 

 

"Above, below and around you, all is

spontaneously existing, for

there is nowhere which is

outside Buddha-Mind."

~ Huang Po

 

"Like the little stream

Making its way

Through the mossy crevices

I, too, quietly

Turn clear and transparent.

 

The wind has settled, the blossoms have fallen;

Birds sing, the mountains grow dark --

This is the wondrous power of Buddhism."

~Ryokan

 

 

We could have chosen any parking place, but

the choice was out of our hands.

In the light of a late Sunday afternoon we stopped

and faced the very subject of our conversation –

Transmission.

Around the thin tree before us the streaming

length of black tape reached out to share with us its

secret of how to ride the wind –

we immediately exclaimed together:

"See!"

 

Choiceless, we were steered to just that

particular and predestined parking space.

We had no hand in any of this, including

where we would park our vehicle of transmission.

The folding of afternoon it was,

and the procession of the moon into the sky

was about to happen momentarily.

The sun made no attempt to fight against

this natural state of affairs.

It was getting late, and late and late it grows,

for who can know the hour of their death?

Pondering nothing in particular and everything

in precise detail we looked up only to gasp

in utter delight. Utter Delight was Dancing

in the wind as a strand of black, shiny tape

undulating and exultating that we were aware

that this show was being put on just for us.

"Look! Look Baby! See!"

The happy beings were in the transmission mode.

We were all Heart and eyes and gladdened hands

clapping like two children in complete abandon.

 

 

Yes, I should next describe the white Heron –

the perfect way it strode downstream,

but maybe I will leave that to you.

 

"How can I possibly sleep

This moonlit evening?

Come, my friends,

Let's sing and dance

All night long."

~Ryokan

 

This poetic ejaculation pretty well sums up

how we felt when we spied the heavenly Heron --

herald of moon's arrival – seeking a silver sliver of

fish to harpoon and hang from his beak of black beauty.

Like an angel strolling purposefully along the riverway,

he held satsang with any eyes

to see and ears to hear how silently,

how stoically he strode,

raising the dead as he passed by.

 

Everyone was a potential Lazarus and he

was simply Jesus resigned to death and resurrections.

 

I was just happy for the young Indian mother-

to-be to whom i had just saluted "Jai to the

New Baby!" while you Pranam'd.

 

She was walking against the wind,

revealing through her sheer mauve dress

the life that bloomed within her.

Her beauty was so exquisite that i cannot say it.

i cannot say it. So we hurried over to her

filled with blissful blessings for the baby -

"Jai to the new baby!" Jai to my Beloved b

who holds back nothing of what the One

wants to do with him.

He belongs to the Beloved!

 

The topic was Huang Po, an early

Hero. This, while the new moon crested the

hills bordering the estuary, two duck couples

glided below us on the arcing bridge, a single

young white Heron stitched the Middle Way

along the spine of stream into sahasrara of the bay

we could not keep our eyes off till we disappeared.

 

We hung on every word from one another

as we wandered along with the wonder of

Huang Po's marvelous memory fresh in our Hearts

and ripe in our minds. We were ripe for the picking.

Plucked up by that Playful Hand, we were

set down beneath two winging ducks

heading homeward towards some destiny

we did not know was also ours.

Below us on that Japanese Bridge

two brilliant mallard males sallied forth,

their paramours trailing the tail end of this

traveling taste of God aglide on glassy water.

We both exclaimed at once,

"Ah -- the middle way!"

We watched them paddling past,

prana personified, until we disappeared in

their disappearance, swallowed up in

the sea of Bliss we all were being born in.

Breathing in the moment we became the birth of Joy.

 

Monosyllabicism has become a more common form

of expression lately for us, although we are never at a

loss for a laugh at two poets reduced to "Oh!" & "Ah!".

Still, "we may go through three stages - two of

non-Enlightenment and one of Enlightenment.

 

"Leaping from the Ledge of Infinite Regress,

The Unmoved Mover fell into Formlessness:

Pure silence echoed between the galaxies,

Eons of eons vanished in a second,

Withered trees bloomed in fires,

Polar mountains melted, rivers went dry,

Thusness scattered in sixty directions,

Space became Time, time became things,

Black Holes filled with Nirvana,

A billion samadhi mirrors shattered,

Galaxies snuggled within a single skull,

Many became One, One only, only One.

Then, the Divine Illuminatrix in All Beings

Opened Her clouded Eye, to see:

Flowers in the Sky.

 

To dance at the still point of the Time beyond time,

Beyond pasts, within futures, this Moment

Now and forever, beyond minds.

Not knowing of Who or why,

We stroll in rose gardens, and Love.

Precious flowers in the sky."

~Michael Garofalo

 

"To the great majority of people, the moon is the moon

and the trees are the trees. The next stage (not really higher than

the first) is to perceive that moon and trees are not at all what

they seem to be, since "all is the One Mind." When this stage is

achieved, we have the concept of a vast uniformity in which all

distinctions are void; and, to some adepts, this concept may come as

an actual perception, as "real" to them as the moon and the trees

before. It is said that, when Enlightenment really comes, the moon is

again very much the moon and the trees exactly trees; but with a

difference, for the Enlightened man is capable of perceiving both

unity and multiplicity without the least contradiction between them!"

~Huang Po

 

 

"akikaze ya

ikite aimiru

nare to ware

 

Autumn wind -

met, returning alive

you and me

 

meigetsu ni

omoukoto ari

warehitori

 

the bright moon

something in my breast

I am alone"

 

~Matsuo Shiki

 

Coming, here, gone:

Flowers in the Sky.

In the blink of one false eye,

In the blink of One True Eye,

Flowers in the empty sky;

Shimmering, scented ... gone,

Gone, gone, gone far beyond

Their seeds of arising.

But, staying, Here-Now,

A Great Marvel of Manifestation.

Bodhisvattas - for the bees.

Soil, sun, rain, sky ...

Four Elements embracing,

Intertwined in mind.

Unfathomable Matrix;

Scaffolds on scaffolds

Grounded in Otherness.

Below seeds, flowers, leaves,

stems, roots ...

Below wet cells embraced,

Below atoms dancing on Energy ...

Deeper and deeper below into

What? A Plenitude, sacredness.

Emptiness in full bloom.

Above seeds, flowers, leaves,

stems, roots ...

Above water, soil, air, sunlight ...

Above sensing, feeling, working, thinking ...

Higher and higher out towards

What? "Vast emptiness, nothing holy."

Flowers in the sky.

~ Dogen by Michael Garofalo

 

Seeing that single slim finger of God

pointing the way to Nowhere,

we realized that we were not only gazing

at the moon, we were what gave rise to it.

Rising inside the OneMind, the Big Mind,

we knew that there was an Incomprehensible

ability to be both on the shore and swimming

in the Sea. Unity and multiplicity were one.

What confounds some as contradictory

is actually continuity never missing a step.

 

 

"The Mind is no mind of conceptual thought, and it is completely

detached from form.... There are those who, upon hearing this

teaching, rid themselves of conceptual thought in a flash.... But

whether they transcend conceptual thought by a longer or shorter way,

the result is a state of BEING: there is no practicing and no action

of realizing. That there is nothing which can be attained is not idle

talk; it is the truth."

~Huang Po

 

 

"All beings by nature are Buddha,

as ice by nature is water;

apart from water there is no ice,

apart from beings no Buddha.

How sad that people ignore the near

and search for truth afar,

like someone in the midst of water

crying out in thirst,

like a child of a wealthy home

wandering among the poor.

Lost on dark paths of ignorance

we wander through the six worlds,

from dark path to dark path we wander,

when shall we be freed from birth and death?

For this the zazen of the Mahayana

deserves the highest praise:

offerings, precepts, paramitas,

Nembutsu, atonement, training--

the many other virtues--

all rise within zazen.

Even those with proud attainments

wipe away immeasurable crimes--

where are all the dark paths then?

The Pure Land itself is not far.

Those who hear this truth even once

and listen with a grateful heart,

treasuring it, revering it,

gain blessings without end.

Much more, if you dedicate yourself

and confirm your own self-nature--

that self-nature is no nature--

you are far beyond mere argument.

The oneness of cause and effect is clear,

not two, not three, the path is put right;

with form that is no form

going and coming--never astray,

with thought that is no thought

singing and dancing are the voice of the Law.

Boundless and free is the sky of samadhi,

bright the full moon of wisdom,

truly is anything missing now?

Nirvana is here, before your eyes,

this very place is the Lotus Land,

this very body the Buddha."

~Hakuin Ekaku's Dharma poem

 

 

And the moon was speaking in tones of timelessness,

flashing its radiance, reflecting the sun of

our state of Mind.

Void of any interpretation,

we were splashed by the watery witness and

left glistening, wet with naked truth --

what else is there to do or know?

As the One informs, so

It informs:

we are both formless and the form

with no distinctions limiting

either mode of expression.

Unmanifest within expression,

we are enlisted to this Dharma Dancing

with itSelf in the manifestation of You & I.

With no conceivable concept to say this,

the thing is said without a word expressed.

 

Of course, our attention was captured

by the on-coming man who appeared

engaged in a lengthy conversation with

his German Shepherd, regarding some

waterfowl restoration project.

 

As he walked by, we realized

that he was on a cell phone.

Intuiting our humor,

he mentioned that the dog was

very smart, but you don't need to be

smart to just listen:

 

"Ordinary people look to their surroundings, while followers of the

Way look to Mind, but the true Dharma is to forget them both. The

former is easy enough, the latter very difficult. Men are afraid to

forget their minds, fearing to fall through the Void with nothing to

stay their fall. They do not know that the Void is not really void,

but the realm of the real Dharma."

~ Huang Po

 

What a laugh we all had at the

Light living us as this parody!

What a paradox –

the dog that was not really being addressed

responded with excellent Teaching!

The daring of the Delighted One

and the Deliciousness of that moment still

tantalize the brainbuds, tasting only That,

this transmission of all our Happy Friends

alight in the lantern of Diogenes.

Why search for the truth we hold inside us?

We hold the Truth inside us.

 

 

Seems obvious enough, as Venus arrives to waltz with the

new moon in its promenade along the now darkening hilltops.

We like the way the night slips itself into the light of day

with the confidence of somebody who's done this before.

For some, it's just a matter of being reminded, we agree.

"Where is the Place of Precious Things? It is a place to which no

directions can be given.... All we can say is that it is close by."

~ Huang Po

 

It is nearer than your breath,

nearer than your own heartbeat.

It flows in our veins as rich red life,

streaming from the Primal Blue Void and

back again as moonlight,

streaming from the sky,

is reflected back in

the eye of the beholder.

 

Whatever gives rise to the

Remembrance is just the river

returning to its source.

The Source searches out itSelf

and shouts a gale of Laughter

every time another burns

the map of no return

and then returns!

 

Needless and heedless of body or mind

the Beloveds blend into infinity's beckoning

from babbling brooks, babies in wombs,

and bushes filled with red-winged blackbirds.

 

The Blessed One is Breathing in me

and i am breathless in deathlessness.

 

"Those only who do not believe, call me Gotama, but you call me the

Buddha, the Blessed One, the Teacher. And this is right, for I have

in this life entered Nirvana, while the life of Gotama has been

extinguished. Self has disappeared and the truth has taken its abode

in me. This body of mine is Gotama's body and it will be dissolved in

due time, and after its dissolution no one, neither God nor man, will

see Gotama again. But the truth remains. The subject on which I

meditate is truth. The practice to which I devote myself is truth.

The topic of my conversation is truth. My thoughts are always in the

truth. For lo! my self has become the truth."

~ Buddha

 

I remembered the story of Huang Po and the fox, and

shared it with you:

 

Once when Obaku's (Huang Po's) teacher Hyakujo delivered some Zen

lectures an old man attended them, unseen by the monks. At the end of

each talk when the monks left so did he. But one day he remained

after the had gone, and Hyakujo asked him: `Who are you?'

The old man replied: `I am not a human being, but I was a human being

when the Kashapa Buddha preached in this world. I was a Zen master

and lived on this mountain. At that time one of my students asked me

whether the enlightened man is subject to the law of causation. I

answered him: "The enlightened man is not subject to the law of

causation." For this answer evidencing a clinging to absoluteness I

became a fox for five hundred rebirths, and I am still a fox. Will

you save me from this condition with your Zen words and let me get

out of a fox's body? Now may I ask you: Is the enlightened man

subject to the law of causation?'

Hyakujo said: `The enlightened man is one with the law of causation.'

At the words of Hyakujo the old man was enlightened. `I am

emancipated,' he said, paying homage with a deep bow. `I am no more a

fox, but I have to leave my body in my dwelling place behind this

mountain. Please perform my funeral as a monk.' The he disappeared.

The next day Hyakujo gave an order through the chief monk to prepare

to attend the funeral of a monk. `No one was sick in the infirmary,'

wondered the monks. `What does our teacher mean?'

After dinner Hyakujo led the monks out and around the mountain. In a

cave, with his staff he poked out the corpse of an old fox and then

performed the ceremony for the dead.

 

You get an interesting idea for a continuation of the story:

 

Unbeknownst to the Abbot or any other monk in the monastery,

a certain brother named "Chang-Tzu" had fallen in love with a woman.

Now this woman, Jade Lotus, was the favorite of every brothel habitue.

She was silky smooth as translucent stone polished to softness by

the finesse of a master jeweler. Her hair was of a black so deep

it sparkled with sapphire blue high-lights, giving the impression

that she stood in the center of a thunderstorm with lightning tints

glittering in her almond-oiled essence tresses.

Jade Lotus was slender like the willow and moved as if she were that

exquisitely swaying tree, played by wind and living a life as freely

as the wind moves, playing where it will.

Jade Lotus loved many men but especially two – a wealthy merchant and

young Chang-Tzu. She knew that Chang-Tzu, a penniless Zen monk

living in a monastery, was obviously not an auspicious career move.

But Aahh, how her heart had been moved when she heard him chanting

the Heart Sutra out of habit while he slumbered at the golden feet of

the Buddha.

Yes, she loved him more than the merchant with money and family, the

one who called out quotes about inventory, supply and demand and the

price of tea in China as he slept. What a man cries out in his sleep

says much about where his heart and head are.

 

Knowing that he had nothing to bring to his beautiful lover, his very

staff of life, Chang-Tzu devised an idea to bring his Beloved a

longed for fur piece, a fine foxskin for the cold and lonely nights

when he could not be with her. (What a lover's blind-sightedness that

Chang-Tzu remained unaware his flower never slept without a warm body

sparking her comfort, and had never known a day of loneliness.

The head-in-the-sky Chang had believed the nonchalant fiction that

Jade worked only one, slept with other men but one day a month.

The cleverness of the Lotus blossom!

So in one moment of hot erotic passion when the Clouds and Rain

loomed near, Chang-Tzu blurted out his promise of a fox fur gift for

her.

What the devil was he thinking?

Ahhh… Vasanas!

But he promised the thing.

 

Chang never made a sound as he sneaked into the cave where

the fox's body laid, awaiting the ceremony of cremation.

Stealing the sacred form of that vulpine being,

he trotted happily down the mountain with his booty.

As he surrendered it to his Beloved Jade Lotus

he felt a lotus begin to close up in his Heart and he did not

know why. But he had a good inkling it might have something to do

with his taking the body of the foxy one he thought he had out-foxed

by theft in the night. Cooing in delight, Dear Jade wrapped the

fur in silk and sent it out the next morning to the tailors for some

revision. Returned to her as a perfect stole

she stole the show with her lady-friends the next day.

Although these were women who worked the body for profit

they were also students of Zen, knowing the men who often came

were such.

Conversation continued until someone questioned Jade:

"Is the enlightened man subject to the law of causation?"

And she replied with a flick of her wrist, tossing the tail of the fox

across her milky white shoulder:

"The enlightened man is not subject to the law of causation."

With that statement Jade Lotus choked on her tea biscuit

and died on the spot.

 

It is said that there is a beautiful fox that hangs about the brothel

and is seen sitting outside the monastery whenever the Heart Sutra is

chanted. This has been going on for hundreds of years, some say.

True enough to this story, there is the sound of a fox yipping at the

new moon each and every month it makes its appearance above the

mountain.

 

"The enlightened man is one with the law of causation –

 

Above, below and around you all is

spontaneously existing, for there is

nowhere which is outside Buddha-Mind."

 

~Huang Po

 

 

 

 

LoveAlways,

 

Mazie & b