The Voices of the River Valley and the Form of the
Mountains
(Keisei sanshiki) Part 3
Another well-known story speaks about the Buddhist path of an old master who had already
been practising for more than 30
years of his life. One day he was wandering through the mountains, when he spotted from a hillside
a charming valley in which peach trees were blossoming in spring.
He suddenly realized the great truth and wrote the
following poem:
“I have been searching something sharp like a sword for
30 years like a traveler.During the time, treeleaves have fallen down many
times, and twigs spread too many times.However, just after looking at the so
gorgeous peach blossoms actually. Having
arrived at the present moment, I have thrown away the whole doubt.”
The sword is a symbol of the clarity of the body-mind. It cuts through confusion and
knots in life, so that one can reach reality. The
symbolic meaning of the sword is similar to that of the diamond. With its sharpness it can also cut through the
thicket of preconceived opinions, validations and lalready made up ideas of the mind.
In ancient China, Koan-stories were common in which a
master refused to answer a well-versed and smart question of one of his
students, because he thought the question to be theoretical and made up fictitious.
Sometimes the master just repeated the question in the exact same way. In this way he wanted to push his
student towards direct experience
and action and to bring him
closer to reality. At the same time the master wanted to liberate him from a
rigid way of thinking and the use of
meaningless words.
The following theoretical questions
of distinctive reasoning, which the masters did not answer with words but with actions, are examples of this:
"How can
we make mountains, rivers, and the Earth part of ourselves?"
Or the question
of a wise philosopher:
"How does
pure essentiality suddenly give rise to mountains, rivers, and the Earth?"
In the following, Master Dogen concentrates on the main contents and basic points of the Buddhist
teachings: perseverance, the strong desire
for truth and the awackening of the Bodhi-spirit, all of which are important premisses
to remember on the Buddha-way.
Hunger for fame, profit and
ego-pride have to be overcome.
Otherwise one blocks oneself on the way.
Dogen also criticizes
the fact that many contemporaries at that time had in
fact become monks although they did not
really strive for the Buddhist
truth or practise persistently. In China, the great
period of Zen Buddhism was already
in decline.
Many monks and abbots were formally Buddhists, but the
strength of the Buddha-Dharma had already become extinct and the pursuit of superficial recognition and
financial gain mostly prevailed.
Often times, it was a question of power and influence at
court.
Under these conditions, the reality and the truth of the
Buddha-Dharma lost their significance
and faded, leaving only images
and shadows.
This is recounted
in the famous allegory in which a living dragon pays the house of a lover of
dragon pictures and sculptures a visit. But seeing the living dragon
before him, the frightened man flees,
as he loves only
“beautiful and harmless” pictures, not reality itself.
Dogen describes it as follows:
“Their body, mind,
bones and their flesh have never lived the real Dharma. That is why they are
not one with the Dharma. They don’t receive and they don’t use the Dharma.”
According to Dogen, such times of decline are full of false teachers and
self-proclaimed masters who are not capable of guiding their students truly onto the Buddha-way.
For this reason Dogen
recommends examining teachers and masters precisely. He also points to the irretrievable damage caused if the teachings are not
transmitted in an authentic way.
In such cases, it would be better not to practise
the Buddha-Dharma at all – as this would not only be a waste of time, but would
also do severe damage.
Those who cannot rely on their own real experience depend
mostly on others and often need shallow confirmation from others – and then
confuse it with the great truth itself. Naturally, to realize this and to see
through it is not that simple.
