Gateless Gate 35

201
Gateless Gate (Mumonkan, Wumenguan) #35
Chien's Soul is Separated

Personnel and Date

• WUZU "Qingyuan" Fayan (Goso Hôen, 1024-1104, 20th gen), disciple of Baiyun Shouduan
Date guess: ca. 1084

Case

Wuzu asked a monk, “Chien's soul is separated; which one is the true Chien?”

Wumen's Comment

If you realize the true one in this, you will understand that getting out of one shell and entering another is just like a traveler staying at an inn; if you have not realized it, don't rush about wildly. When earth, water, fire, and wind are suddenly about to decompose, you will be like a crab which has fallen into boiling water and its seven arms and eight legs. At that time, don't say I didn't warn you.

Wumen's Verse

The clouds and the moon are the same;
Valleys and mountains are different from each other.
All are happy, ten thousand times happy!
Is this one? Is this two?
(Or: "This is one, this is two.")

Sato's Note

Seijo [Jap. for "Chien"] literally means “the girl Sei”. The story of Sei comes from an old Chinese legend of the T’ang period: Once upon a time in the province of Kô there lived an old man named Chôkan. Chôkan loved his beautiful daughter Sei very much. Chôkan used to tease her when she was still a child, saying that her beauty matched that of her cousin, the handsome Ôchû. Just about the time that the two cousins realized they were in love, Chôkan announced his choice of another man as husband for Sei. The young lovers were heartbroken. Ôchû left the town, setting off in a small boat. He had rowed a distance when he noticed someone running along the bank, waving to him. To his great joy he found that it was Sei who had followed him. They decided to travel to a far-off land and make a life together. A few years later, when Sei had become the mother of two children, she realized for the first time how deep the parent’s love is. Her conscience began to bother her about the way she had treated her beloved father. Her husband Ôchû, who also regretted what they had done to Chôkan, suggested that they return to their homeland to ask for his forgiveness. When they arrived in the province Kô, Sei remained in the boat while Ôchû went to apologize to Chôkan and tell him what had happened. The old man listened incredulously. Finally he asked Ôchû when he was talking about. The young husband replied, “Your daughter Sei.” “But Sei never left home!” the old man exclaimed. “Shortly after you went away she became ill and is still confined to bed. She hasn’t uttered a word since you left.” “You must be mistaken,” Ôchû replied. “Sei followed me, and we went together to a far-off country. We’re married and have two children. She is in excellent health and wants to see you again and ask your forgiveness for running away and marrying without your permission. If you don’t believe me, come down to the boat and see for yourself.” The old man was reluctant, so Ôchû went alone to bring Sei back to her father’s house. In the meantime, Chôkan went into the bedroom to tell the sick Sei what had happened. Without a word, the invalid rose from her bed and rushed out to meet the approaching Sei, and the two became one. Chôkan said to his daughter, “Ever since Ôchû left, you have been dumb and lifeless, as though your soul had fled.” Sei told him, “I didn’t know I was home sick in bed. When I heard that Ôchû had left, I followed his boat as if in a dream.”

Background on Wuzu (Aitken)

As a young man Wuzu studied Buddhist philosophy, and one day a fellow student challenged their teacher with the words, “If subject and object are one, how can that fact be realized?”
The teacher responded, “It is like drinking water and knowing personally whether or not it is warm or cold.”
Wu-zu said to himself, “I know about warm and cold, but I don’t know about personally.”

Aitken's Comment

The young woman Chien separated and rejoined. Can you identify her? It is not enough to say they were one from the beginning. Where is the real Chien?
Living a divided life is debilitating. It laid Chien out completely. And there is more than one way of being divided. Seated at my desk, I long to be on the line protesting the destruction of the habitat. Thus I cannot be effective in either place. The man who takes a mistress slights both his family and his new love. His spirit divided, he dissipates his potential as an integrated person.
“The moon and the clouds are the same.” Chien living with her husband and children; Chien pining at home — aren’t these the same Chien? All your actions, cleaning the bathtub, crossing the street, paying bills, are movements in separate circumstances of the same essential you. In the context of the story, how are moon and clouds the same?
“Mountains and valleys are different.” Chien was wife and mother in the far city. Chien was a sick daughter at home. They were widely separated in every way. These are interpretations of the story, of course. You must see the application of these two lines in your own life.
“Is this one? Is this two?” Now about this thing — what do you say? Two Chiens? One Chien? Can the true one be two?

Purong's Verse (Cleary)

The dual woman combines the roles of daughter and wife:
When the wheel of potential is cut off, interchange is impossible.
All along the comings and goings have no tracks;
Travelers are not to be asked the road by which they came.

Shibyama attributes the verse to Fuyu Chizo (student of Wuzu Fayan), and gives this translation: The two girls were unified to become a young wife. /The working has ended, no interfusing any more. /Coming and going leave no traces at all. /You travelers, please do not ask me which path I once took.

Cishou's Verse (Cleary)

It is Just the usual carryings-on;
Casually brought up. it becomes confusing.
Last night a wild wind arose.
Blowing down who knows how many peach blossoms.

Huo-An's Verse (Cleary)

Whatever is done is not forgotten
Even in thousands of years:
When causes and conditions combine.
Results and consequences are naturally experienced.

Cleary's Comment

The underlying point of the tale is that human beings play different roles in life, and relate differently to different people and different situations through these different roles. Wuzu's question is this: "Who and what is the real self underlying and undertaking these roles?" The Zen point is that these roles are not the real self, but are more properly like guests or servants of the real self. Confusion and loss of freedom arise from a fundamental misapprehension: Identifying with a role, people can forget and lose the rest of their potential, shifting from role to role unconscious of the central "pivot" of the essential self, people can experience stultifying conflicts among their commitments to different roles.

Guo Gu's Comment

In a way, you are living like that girl. To one person you are a son; to another you are a father or a daughter, a mother, a friend, an enemy. You may be someone entirely different to someone else. You may wish to reconcile all of these roles, but you can’t do it. Even within yourself you feel conflicted; you recognize different facets of yourself. For example, you know that you shouldn’t do negative, harmful things, but you keep doing them. The multiple selves you feel within you seem irreconcilable. Who are you really? To take up this koan is to take up the question: Which is your real self? How can you live as a human without knowing who you are? But the way to discover this is not to lock yourself in a room and meditate all day. Rather, it is through your interactions in daily life, amid all the selves that you present to others and all the selves that are projected onto you by others. The course of practice takes great courage, but it is to be hoped that you are in the good company of fellow practitioners.

A Related Miscellaneous Koan (Low)

Two sisters were out in the rain; which is the one who did not get wet?

Poem from the Christian Gnostic Gospels (Low)

I am the first and the last.
I am the honored one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am (the mother) and the daughter.
I am she whose wedding is great and
I have not taken a husband.

from The Gospel of Thomas (Low)

When you make the two one
and make the inside like the outside
and the outside like the inside
and the upper side like the underside
and in such a way that you make the man with the woman a single one in such a way that the man is not man and the woman is not woman;
then you will go into the kingdom.

Sufi Poem by Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) (Low)

If then you perceive me, you perceive yourself.
But you cannot perceive me through yourself.
It is through my eyes that you see me and see your self,
Through your eyes you cannot see me.

Yongjia Xuanjue's (665-713) Verse (Low; Shibayama)

Delusions need not be removed;
Truth need not be sought after.
The reality of ignorance is one with Buddha nature;
The illusory form is one with the dharma body.

Low's Comment

Rarely is just one kind of love present, rarely are we sufficiently pure in heart that we can, in Kierkegaard’s words, “will one thing.” As humans we are complex, and this complexity colors all that we do. But even so, beyond the complexity and the confusion, the muddled fog of existence is that which is common to all kinds of love. It is said “God is love,” and if it were not such a cliché that would say it all. Common to all love, including sexual and divine love, is original unity, the unity alluded to in Plato’s myth. Originally we are one, but subsequently we are divided in two and from this two comes multiplicity. The different forms of love are like the spectrum that pure light breaks into when it passes thorough a prism of glass. When the light of unity passes through the prism of the human heart it too breaks down into a spectrum, and human life is colored by it.
Ambiguity is what the koan is about: oneness and twoness, oneness that is twoness, oneness that is not even oneness.

Sekida's Comment

First discover your own real self, then you can see which is the real Chien. Buddhism asserts that there is no man, but causation alone: no constant ego, and no entity called the soul. Everything mutates in the stream of cause and effect. What has appeared is vividly there. When it has gone, it is gone. Moment after moment, it streams along. Beyond this appearing and going, there is essentially nothing else. Phenomena themselves are the real. When you ask what is real, you have already missed it. The real is realized in your samadhi. Quietly and earnestly practice zazen, then everything will become clear.
Valleys and mountains are one land, but they are separated into valleys and mountains.
Are they one or are they two? They are one and they are two.

Senzaki's Comment

While I am talking to you, I never recognize my individuality. I only use the term “I” in contrast to “you.” My whole being is passing transiently through this body, these clothes, and this house. There is no such animal steadily labeled Senzaki. This monk you call Senzaki is passing minute after minute, from one envelope to another. Tomorrow you may see a man who looks like Senzaki, thinks like Senzaki, and speaks or acts like Senzaki, but that fellow will not be the Senzaki you recognize this minute. Liking him or disliking him are altogether your illusion.
There is no individual life, and therefore there is no personal death. In such a predicament, you may say, Wumen did not tell me where to go! But it will be too late then.
There is a koan, “Avalokiteshvara has one thousand eyes. Which is the real eye?” If an actress in the movies could pass this koan, she would be able to turn every role she played into a masterpiece, and also lead her private life ethically and intelligently. Then I would say, as Wumen did, “This is one; this is two.”

"Old Zen Master's" Verse (Shibayama)

The moon on the waves,
Now scattered, now unified!

Master Kido's Verse (Shibayama)

Peach branches and reeds in front,
Paper money after the funeral cart.
O disciples of the old foreigner,
You will not enter into the realm of the dead.

Shibayama's Comment

At a glance it sounds very simple, yet from olden times this has been studied by Zen students as one of the nanto koans.
Needless to say, Wuzu is not asking you a vulgar question as to which is the true Chien in this ghost story. He refers to the story of Chien, who with her one body turned out to be two, as a means of training his monks so that they will open their Zen eye. If we reflect on ourselves, don’t we realize that we are all in a situation similar to Chien’s, with her soul separated? There is the “I” that always wants to do just as “I” please, trying to satisfy “my” desires and enjoy life as much as possible. There is also another “I,” who feels lonely in such a pleasure-seeking life and even finds it detestable. Which is the true “I”?
If we take up the body as the true Chien, then the soul would turn out to be false. If we recognize soul as the true Chien, then the body has to be false. In actuality, however, there is no human being with a soul alone without a body, or with a body alone without a soul. A living human being cannot be defined as soul or body. He is the Reality which is neither one nor two. There is no idle argument that can distinguish one from the other as true or false. In other words, what exists is the Reality of man, which is neither one nor two, and this Reality naturally develops its working in two aspects, as body and soul.
Zen insists that each one of us must actually live the Absolute Subjectivity as a fact of his own experience. This is exactly the real motive of Master Wumen in presenting the story of Chien as a Zen koan here.
For the one who has clearly opened his Zen eye, everything, as it is, is “it.” If he stands, the very place where he stands is “it.” If he sits, the very place where he sits is at once the “true one.” It is, as it is, the whole universe.

Yamada's Comment

It is not necessary, of course, for the purpose of Zen study to think about whether the story is probable or not from the scientific point of view, or to decide which is the true Chien by psychiatric analysis. Wuzu is trying to make the monk realize the true one by passing through the perplexity of two Chiens. As long as you are attached to the dualistic concept of two Chiens, you cannot grasp the true one. Which is the true one? What is the true Chien? As you know, when you have truly become one with Mu, you realize what Mu is. When you have really become one with Chien, you will see the true Chien easily.
“The clouds and the moon are the same.” Differentiation is nothing but equality. Though the clouds and the moon appear as separate things, they are nothing but the manifestation of one essential emptiness. Though the two Chiens lived separately, they were two appearances of one essential nature. Sometimes we feel sad, sometimes happy. Sadness and happiness are not the same, but when we realize that each of them is totally void and has no substance, we will realize that the two are different manifestations of one empty essence.
“Valleys and mountains are different from each other.” Equality is nothing but differentiation. Though valleys and mountains are different manifestations of one essential emptiness, valleys are not mountains, and mountains are not valleys. They are completely different. One Chien was lying in her father’s home in a stupor. The other Chien was living with her husband in a far-distant land. Though their essential nature is one, being totally void, they were living separately, each retaining her own individuality. Both sadness and happiness come from the same origin, which is completely void; but when we feel sad there is no happiness at all, and when we feel happy, sadness is not to be seen.

Hotetsu's Verse Hotetsu's Verses on Koans

Sixty years of this and that:
Doing what comes next.
Sixty years of lying in a stupor:
Sick and hardly moving.
Two is 9,998 too few.
One is one too many.

Appendix: Alternate Translations

Case

Wuzu asked a monk, “Chien's soul is separated; which one is the true Chien?”

Aitken: Wu-tsu asked a monk, “The woman Ch’ien and her spirit separated. Which is the true Ch’ien?”

Cleary: Wuzu asked a monk, "A woman split her soul; which was the real one?"

Guo Gu: Wuzu asked a monk (at a funeral), “This beautiful woman has died and her spirit has departed. Which is the real person?”

Hinton: Master Fifth-Patriarch Mountain asked a monk: “Twain-Beauty’s sky-spirit fled to a life with her true love, leaving her earth-spirit to live on at home. Which was the actual Twain-Beauty?”

Low: Goso said to his monks, “Sei and her soul are separated. Who is the true Sei?”

Sekida: Goso said to his monks, “Seijo’s soul separated from her being. Which was the real Seijo?”

Senzaki: Goso said, “Seijo, the Chinese woman, had two souls. One was always sick at home, and the other was a married woman with two children, living in another province. Which was the true soul?”

Shibayama: Goso asked a monk, “Sen-jo and her soul are separated: which is the true one?”

Verse

The clouds and the moon are the same; /Valleys and mountains are different from each other. /All are happy, ten thousand times happy! /Is this one? Is this two?

Aitken: The moon and the clouds are the same; /mountains and valleys are different. /All are blessed, all are blessed. /Is this one? Is this two?

Cleary: The clouds and moon are the same. /The valleys and mountains are individually different. /Myriad blessings, myriad blessings— /Are they one or two?

Guo Gu: Clouds and moon are the same, /Streams and mountains are different. /Myriad blessings, myriad blessings! /Are we, and they, one or two?

Hinton: Cloud and moon are both the same, /stream and mountain each different. /Ten thousand blessings, ten thousand /blessings: they’re one, they’re many.

Low: Ever the same the moon among the clouds; /Different from each other, the mountain and the valley. /Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. /Is this one, or two?

Sekida: The moon above the clouds is ever the same; /Valleys and mountains are separate from each other. /All are blessed, all are blessed; /Are they one or are they two?

Senzaki: The moon above the clouds is the same moon, /The mountains and rivers below are all different. /All are blessed, in unity and diversity. /This is one; this is two.

Shibayama: Ever the same, the moon among the clouds; /Different from each other, the mountain and the valley. /How wonderful! How blessed! /Is this one, or two?