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Gateless Gate (Mumonkan, Wumenguan) #22
Dogen's 300 #169
Kashyapa's Flagpole
Gateless Gate (Mumonkan, Wumenguan) #22
Dogen's 300 #169
Kashyapa's Flagpole
- MAHAKASYAPA (d. 380 BCE)
- ANANDA Date guess: ca. 380 BCE (Ananda had been studying with Kasyapa 20 years after Buddha's death)
Ananda asked Kashyapa in all earnestness, “The world-Honored One transmitted the brocade robe to you. What else did he transmit to you?”Note: A flag was raised on the pole at the gate when a sermon was being preached or when a Dharma combat was in progress. “Knock down the flag pole” means that the sermon or the Dharma combat is over.
Kashyapa called, “Ananda!”
Ananda replied, “Yes, Master.”
Kashyapa said, “Knock down the flagpole at the gate.”
Wumen's Comment
If you can give a turning word befitting this, you will see that the meeting at Mt. Grdhrakûta is definitely still in session. If not, it is because Vipashyin Buddha has keeping something in mind from the remotest times, and even now he still cannot attain the mystery.Note: The "meeting at Mt. Grhdrakuta" refers to GG6. Vipashyin Buddha was the first of the Seven Buddhas preceding Shakyamuni.
Wumen's Verse
The answer is more familiar than the question;Aitken's Comment
How many discuss this with glaring eyes!
Elder brother calls, younger brother answers - the family disgrace!
Here is the spring that belongs to neither yin nor yang.
“What else did he transmit?” Was it something tangible? Something mystical? In the T’ang and Sung periods of China it was the custom for a teacher to present his own portrait to his student as a sign of transmission. From the Kamakura period in Japan onward, the teacher’s calligraphy conveying the disciple’s new teacher-name has been the token. But again, like the robe of the Buddha, such things are only symbols, bits of paper, fingers pointing to something.Fenyang's Question (Cleary)
“Ānanda!” Nothing gets one’s attention more keenly than hearing one’s name. When you have thrown everything away — all thoughts of yourself, all thoughts of transmission to yourself — then the whole universe shouts “Hello!” Just “Hello!” And the whole universe shouts “Yes!” Just “Yes!” This is the fact of transmission.
“Knock down the flagpole at the gate.” The flag is a banner run up to announce that the rōshi is giving a teishō today. Is Mahakasyapa saying there's no need for a teisho? He doesn’t just say, “Pull down the flag.” He cries out, “Knock down the pole, flag and all!” This is the denouement.
To be intimate with Mahākāśyapa and Ānanda is to realize the treasure of calling and answering. This realization is transformational — in the family, in the Buddha Sangha, in the workplace, one is warmhearted, kind, and generous. The person who understands Zen as something limited to his or her own samādhi cannot be truly intimate. “Tough-guy” Zen is a travesty of Zen.
How would Ananda know if he didn't ask?Yunju's Comment (Cleary)
If you understand before the flagpole is taken down, you bury the ancient religion, - if you understand after the flagpole is taken down, you let yourself down.Lingyuan's Comment (Cleary)
Everyone says that Kashyapa only knew how to dismantle, not how to reconstruct. What they do not realize is that he put a toxic drug in the milk that can kill people and can also enliven them, causing the twenty-eight Indian and six Chinese patriarchs of Zen to break their bones and split their skin, such that the blood drips on the road of Zen to this very day.Cleary's Comment
When Ananda asked Kashyapa about the inner transmission symbolized by the outward succession, Kashyapa called him by name, using an outward representation to hint at an inner reality, the essence of the mind that asks and answers. Having pointed to Ananda's own mind, Kashyapa tells him to take down the flagpole, signifying that there is no debate between them in the sense that the original Buddha-mind is equal in all people.Guo Gu's Comment
Nothing is really transmitted in dharma transmission — it is just an acknowledgment, but people tend to mystify it or make a big deal out of it. It is an acknowledgment that recognizes the debt of gratitude a student has to the teacher and the teacher’s entrustment to the student to ensure that the teaching continues. What is important is gratitude and responsibility. Dharma transmission is not to be vied for, it is not an object of attachment, it does not legitimize one’s awakening; it is an expression of gratitude, especially in this ephemeral world.A Nisargadatta Encounter (Low)
“Take down the flagpole.” What a wonderful response! A call, a response. Is there anything else needed? What need is there for anything to be transmitted? Ānanda is like a person who is already drinking water and then asks, “Is there more to this water than water?” If we can't realize the truth of Mahakasyapa's call to Ananda, or that there is nothing more to this water than the water we're drinking each and every moment, then Sakyamuni and Maitreya have never gotten the truth either. The buddhadharma is widely available to you, in the moment, within you. Find it! You have already reached awakening. The dharma has already been transmitted. But can you shoulder the responsibility of this transmission?
A person asked Nisargadatta whether he should not examine a teacher before he put himself entirely in his hands.Low's Comment
Nisargadatta replied, “By all means examine! But what can you find out? Only as he appears to you on your own level.”
The questioner went on to say that he would watch to ensure that the teacher was consistent, whether harmony existed between his teaching and his life.
Nisargadatta argued, “You may find plenty of disharmony — so what? It proves nothing. Only motives matter. How will you know his motives?”
The questioner maintained, “I should at least expect him to be a man of self-control who leads a righteous life."
Nisargadatta replied, “Such you will find and many, and of no use to you. A teacher can show the way back home, to your real self. What has this to do with the character or the temperament of the person he appears to be? Does he not clearly tell you that he is not the person?”
We have to understand transmission on the one hand as the most simple of all simple issues, and on the other as something fairly complex. The reason for the complexity is that Zen finds its place in a very imperfect world. Transmission is a two-way street. Receiving it, the person is sanctioned to teach; giving it, the person passes on authority. In the case, say, of doctors, it is fairly obvious what is transmitted to them. A curriculum exists that has to be completed, as well as ways by which to ensure that someone has indeed fulfilled the requirements of this curriculum. A certificate indicates these requirements have been met. But what has been transmitted to Mahakashyapa and his descendants? The spiritual is its own dimension, and no criteria at the secular level are adequate to judge it. Transmission should be proof that the successor has made the journey and is competent to help others. Unfortunately, transmission does not always do this.Sekida's Comment
Attainment of Buddhahood is, as Wumen observes, a spring that does not fit into the annual cycle of seasons. It does not follow the laws of cause and effect as we know them. It is the family skeleton, a disgrace, because as Wumen also points out, even Vipasyin Buddha, the first in the patriarchal line, has still not grasped the essence. To come to awakening is truly to see that no awakening is possible. But one must truly see it.
The completeness of the question and response is shown by Mahakashyapa saying, not take down the flag, but knock down the flagpole. After this, what use is another talk?
"Did he give you anything else?" Ananda thought that, besides the robe, something spiritual must have been transmitted.Senzaki's Comment
“Ananda!” cried Kashyapa. “Yes, sir!” In GG10 we have: “Sōzan called out, ‘Seizei!’ Seizei responded, ‘Yes, sir!’ Sōzan said, ‘You have finished three cups of the finest wine in China..." Again in GG17, the National Teacher called his attendant three times, and three times the attendant responded. At what point did Seizei drink the wine? And what does all the National Teacher’s calling and the attendant’s responding mean? Calling and responding: nothing comes between. Pure cognition is effected. This is an exercise of positive samadhi. Ananda’s samadhi was mature, and through this calling and responding he suddenly came to enlightenment.
"Knock down the flagpole at the gate." Kashyapa’s lecture was over. Knocking down the pole is a dramatic confirmation of the transmission of the Dharma to Ananda. Knocking down the flagpole has another important implication. Knock down your own ego, knock down what you treasure: enlightenment, Zen, your teacher, the Buddha, everything. This knocking down is used as an independent koan. The teacher will ask, “How do you knock down the flagpole?”
The true aspect of non-form, and the ineffable gate of Dharma were, as yet, beyond the reach of Ananda. Mahakashyapa wanted to wake him up, and called, “Ananda!” Ananda, like an echo, answered, “Yes, Brother.” The voice that called had no trace of ego or personality, and the answering voice also had none. There was no caller who claimed to be a caller, and there was no one who established himself as the respondent.Shibayama's Comment
Each of us must experience Zen realization as the resurrection of our life, crushing our ego-shell and freeing our true nature. It will not come to us by luck, as in a lottery. We must work hard for it, taking Ananda as our example. He studied twenty-six years under Buddha, and then twenty more years under Mahakashyapa.
While Zen's tradition and transmission are maintained solely by the religious experience of each individual, the genuineness of the experience of the disciple must be identified with that of his teacher. In other words, while Zen insists on the one hand that the religious experience of the individual is the fundamental requisite, at the same time Zen holds that the teacher’s verification of his disciple’s attainment is absolutely necessary. The mind-to-mind transmission in Zen thus has to be teacher-disciple identification.Yamada's Comment
“What did the World-Honored One give you besides the brocade robe?” Needless to say, the transmission of something in material or ritual form in Zen is just a shadow of the transmission of the untransmittable, which is formless and invisible. The vital question here is how this invisible Dharma is to be conveyed and how its transmission and identification can be verified. “Ananda!” Here is the working of no-mind, the work of no-work. What an outstanding and concrete instruction this is! So direct and penetrating that there is no room for intellection at all.
“Yes, sir!” So direct and penetrating is the reply that there is no room for any intellection. This is the moment when the teacher-disciple identification has been accomplished. The whole universe is Kasho who is calling; the whole universe is Ananda who is answering. Kasho calls Ananda, and Ananda answers Kasho. The universe calls, and the universe answers. Can there be more intimate calling and answering than this?
“Pull down the flagpole at the gate!” All has been completed, for this is Kasho’s verification of Ananda’s attainment. In actual training at the monastery, the Master may suddenly cry out: “You, at this moment, pull down the flagpole at the monastery gate!” A moment of hesitation will result in thirty blows of his stick. To pull down the flagpole is to pull down I-myself. To pull down I-myself is to pull down the universe. Here, now, without moving even one finger, can you perform this wonder?
“Did the World-Honored One transmit anything besides the brocade robe to you?” After attaining realization, Ananda continued his practice under Kashyapa for twenty years, believing that his own enlightenment and those of the Buddhas and patriarchs were all the same. But gradually he began to doubt and wondered if there were something else besides his own experience.Daido Loori's Comment (Dogen's 300)
“Ananda!” “Yes, Master!” That’s all. Everything is complete. Nothing remains outside the call and the reply. “Ananda!” That call is the only one in the whole universe. It is one with the universe. “Yes, Master!” That reply is the perfect manifestation of the whole. Every one of us should be able to attain realization upon hearing it. When Kashyapa called Ananda, there was not a speck of delusion. When Ananda replied, the whole universe was totally used up by the one voice. Nothing remained outside of it.
“Knock down the flagpole at the gate.” Kashyapa’s command could mean that the mondo is over; nothing remains, so the flagpole is unnecessary. Knock it down. Or you may take it to mean that the flagpole stands for all thoughts, concepts, and philosophies. Kashyapa noticed that Ananda still harbored some concepts and commanded him to get rid of them. It is said that Ananda instantly attained deep realization. Every one of us calls and replies in our daily life. But almost none of us can realize the true meaning of this. If there had been no delusions, Ananda should have attained perfect realization the instant he heard the call and gave the reply. But he did not. Kashyapa then gave him a last blow: “Knock down the flagpole!” With that blow, Ananda knocked out all remaining concepts and came to the realization that he is Buddha himself from the very beginning, standing empty and alone in the whole universe.
Although Ananda is a wellspring of the Buddha's teachings, he has not attained the adamantine wisdom. When his ripeness finally manifests, he wants to know if anything else besides the brocade robe was transmitted on Mount Gridhrakuta.Daido's Interjections
Mahakasyapa, seeing that the critical stage has been reached, calls, "Ananda!" However, we should understand that although he calls out like this, he is not calling Ananda, nor is the response an answer to his call. All of this notwithstanding, although the message is sent, it does not reach home. Seeing this, Mahakasyapa pushes against the edges and ultimately walks into Ananda's belly, saying, "Take down the flagpole at the front gate." At that moment the Budddha's robe enters Ananda's skull. Not only is the flagpole taken down, but so is Mahakasyapa, as well as the mountains, rivers, and the great earth itself.
The Second Ancestor, Ananda, asked Mahakasyapa, "Senior brother, besides the golden brocade robe you have received, have you receive anything else?"Daido's Verse
(When doubt is born, can truth be far behind?)
Mahakasyapa called out, "Ananda!"
(Direct and penetrating -- thank you for your teaching. But if a single thought arises, all is lost in intellection.)
Ananda responded, "Yes, Master?"
(Direct and penetrating, the valley does not know its echo.)
Mahakasyapa said, "Take dow the flagpole in front of the monastery gate."
(The whole universe has been take down. What a pity.)
Ananda had a great realization.
Dragon sons and daughters are always born of dragon parents --Hotetsu's Verse
but how can it be explained?
The rains have passed,
and the autumn river runs deep and fast.
Breathing in, Ananda. Breathing out, yes, Master.
Breathing in, yes, Master. Breathing out, Ananda.
Breathing in, flagpole knocked down. Breathing out, flagpole raised.
Breathing in, flagpole raised. Breathing out, flagpole knocked down.
Illustration by Mark Morse, http://www.thegatelessgate.com/
Appendix: Alternate Translations
Case
Case
Ananda asked Kashyapa in all earnestness, “The world-Honored One transmitted the brocade robe to you. What else did he transmit to you?” Kashyapa called, “Ananda!” Ananda replied, “Yes, Master.” Kashyapa said, “Knock down the flagpole at the gate.”
Aitken: Ananda asked Mahakasyapa, "The World-Honored One transmitted the robe of gold brocade to you. What else did he transmit to you?" Kasyapa said, "Ananda!" Ananda answered, "Yes!" "Kasyapa said, "Knock down the flagpole at the gate."
Cleary: Ananda asked Kashyapa, "Aside from the golden-sleeved robe, what did the Buddha hand on to you?" Kashyapa called, "Ananda!" Ananda responded, "Yes?" Kashyapa said, "Take down the flagpole in front of the gate."
Guo Gu: Ananda asked Mahakasyapa, "Besides the golden robe, what else did the Buddha transmit to you?" Mahakasyapa yelled, "Ananda!" Ananda replied, "Yes?" Mahakasyapa said, "Take down the temple flagpole in the front gate."
Hinton: Ananda asked Mahakashyapa: "The World-Honored One passed on to you his gold-filigree robes, but what else did he pass on?" "Ananda!" replied Mahakashyapa. "Yes." "Out front at the gate, the flag announcing my dharma-talk: go tear it down, pole and all!"
Low: Ananda asked Kashyapa, "The World-Honored One transmitted to you the robe and bowl; did he transmit anything else to you?"Kashyapa called him and said, "Ananda!" "Yes?" "Knock down the flagpole at the gate."
Sekida: Ananda asked Kashyapa, "The World-Honored One gave you the golden robe; did he give you anything else?" "Ananda!" cried Kashyapa. "Yes, sir!" answered Ananda. "Knock down the flagpole at the gate," said Kashyapa.
Senzaki: Ananda asked Mahakashyapa, "Buddha gave you the golden-brocade robe of successorship. What else did he give you?" Mahakashyapa called, "Ananda!" "Yes, Brother," answered Ananda. Mahakashyapa said, "Knock down my preaching sign and put up your own."
Shibayama: Ananda once said to Kasho, "The World-Honored One transmitted to you the brocade robe. What else did he transmit to you?" Kasho called out, "Ananda!" Ananda answered, "Yes, sir." Kasho said, "Pull down the flagpole at the gate."
Verse
The answer is more familiar than the question; /How many discuss this with glaring eyes! /Elder brother calls, younger brother answers - the family disgrace! /Here is the spring that belongs to neither yin nor yang.
Aitken: "The call is good, the answer is intimate" -- /how many discuss this with glaring eyes! /Elder brother calls, younger brother answers -- the family disgrace; /there is a spring that does not belong to Yin and Yang.
Cleary: How was the point of the question as intimate as the point of the answer? /How many people have developed muscles in their eyes with this? /Elder brother calls, younger brother responds, bringing out the family disgrace; /Not in the province of dark and light, this is a special springtime.
Guo Gu: THe question is not as intimate as the answer. /Whose eyes have strengthened from this (truth)? /The elder calls, the younger responds -- the family's shame is fully exposed. /A spring outside of yin and yang.
Hinton: How can a question have the kindred intimacy of an answer? /How many can see into this with every fiber of their being? /Elder brothers call, younger respond: it's our family disgrace. /And there's a springtime outside the seasons of yin and yang.
Low: The question -- how dull! The answer -- how intimate! /How many people there are with a film over their eyes! /Elder brother calling, younger brother answering -- the family skeleton! /This is a spring that does not belong to Yin and Yang.
Sekida: Tell me -- question or answer -- whcih was more intimate? /Many have knit their brows over this; /Elder brother calls, younger brother answers, and they betray the family secret. /They had a special spring, not one of yin and yang.
Senzaki: The point of the question is dull, but the answer is intimate. /How many who hear it will open their eyes? /The elder brother calls, and the younger brother answers. /This spring is the eternal one -- no ordinary season.
Shibayama: The calling out is good, but even better the answering. /How many are there who have opened their true eyes? /The elder brother calling out, the younger brother replying, the family shame is revealed. /This is the spring that does not belong to Yin and Yang.
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