Gateless Gate 37, Book of Serenity 47

73
Gateless Gate (Mumonkan, Wumenguan) #37
Book of Serenity (Shoyoroku, Congrong Lu) #47
Dogen's 300 #119
The Oak Tree in the Garden

Personnel

• ZHAOZHOU Congshen (Joshu Jushin, 778-897, 10th gen), disciple of Nanquan
• An unnamed monk

Wansong's Preface

The cypress tree in the garden. The flapping flag on the pole. As a blossom bespeaks the boundless spring, a drop bespeaks the ocean's water. The five-hundred-year-old Buddha clearly leaves the usual stream. Not falling into speech or thought, how do you express it?"

Case

A monk asked Zhaozhou in all earnestness, “What is the meaning of the Ancestor's coming from the West?”
Zhaozhou said, “The oak tree in the garden.”

Wumen's Comment

If you see through Zhaozhou's response clearly, there is no Shakyamuni in the past, no Maitreya in the future.

Wumen's Verse

Words do not express the fact,
Speech does not match the student;
Attached to words, one loses the reality,
Stagnating in phrases, one is deluded.

Honghzhi's Verse (Wick)

Eyebrow-banks snow tipped.
River-eyes embracing autumn.
Ocean-mouth booming out waves.
Sail-tongue drifting downstream.
Riot-quelling hand, peace-making strategy.
Dear old Zhaozhou! Dear old Zhaozhou!
Stirring up the monastery, he's not yet taken rest.
Uselessly rendering aid, making a cart and entering the well-worn ruts.
Basically untalented; he blocks up ravines and fills ditches.

Aitken's Comment

What was Bodhidharma’s mind as he journeyed from India to China? He came with the message that one cannot depend upon words, and he urged seeing into true nature for the attainment of Buddhahood. That may have been his message, but we must distinguish this from his meaning, his essence of mind. When Linji was asked the same question, he said, “If Bodhidharma had had any meaning he could not have saved even himself.”
If Zhaozhou had had any meaning, there would be no such thing as a Zen path. Then is Zhaozhou’s answer designed to show “no-meaning”? Not exactly. The point is that “meaning” is a word that invites a presentation of your heart of hearts and there are two basic ways to do this — as in Mazu’s two responses to questions about Buddha. In Case 30 Mazu says, “This very mind is Buddha.” In Case 33 he turns around and says, “Not mind, not Buddha.” Positively: “Oak tree in the courtyard.” Negatively: “If he had had any meaning, he could not have saved even himself.” Positive and negative are not opposites here; each includes the other. They are the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West, now by land, now by sea. Linji presented the fact of the oak tree in the courtyard with his words, “If he had had any meaning, he could not have saved even himself.” Likewise, Zhaozhou presented Linji’s point.

Continuation of the Case (Aitken)

“Please don’t teach me with reference to outside things.”
Zhaozhou said, “I don’t teach you with reference to outside things.”
he monk said, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?”
Chao-chou said, “The oak tree in the courtyard.

A Follow-Up Case (Aitken)

After Zhaozhou's death, Fayan asked Huijiao (disciple of Zhaozhou), “I have heard that your late master had a saying: ‘The oak tree in the courtyard.’ Is that correct?”
Huijiao said, “No.”
Fayan said, “Anyone who has been around will say that a monk asked him about the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West, and that he answered, ‘The oak tree in the courtyard.’ How can you maintain that he didn’t say it?” Huijiao said, “He really didn’t say that. Please don’t slander him.”

Simone Weil quote (Aitken)

Contemplating an object fixedly with the mind, asking myself, ‘What is it?’ without thinking of any other object or relating it to anything else for hours on end.”

Cleary's Comment

Zhaozhou's saying in this koan is a reflection of the suchness of being-as-is. The immediate moment of awareness of suchness is the Buddha of all time.

Huanglong Nan's Verse (Cleary)

All trees wither and die in time,
But the cypress in Zhaozhou's yard flourishes forever.
Not only does it defy the frost, keeping its integrity;
It virtually sings with a clear voice to the light of the moon.

Foguo Bai's Verse (Cleary)

Only when really unusual do you recognize the unusual;
It is the eye of spirits that recognizes spirits.
People today don't know the living meaning of Zen;
They only see the green green cypress in the yard.

Fojian's Verse (Cleary)

When the rain clears in the vast and endless sky,
The bright moon shines with a clear radiance.
Floating clouds cover up a thousand people's eyes;
Those who see the face on the moon are few and far between.

Guo Gu's Comment

“What is the meaning of the Ancestor coming from the west?” The meaning of this question for you is: What has he [the Ancestor, Bodhidharma] given you? What is this Chan that you are practicing? How does it relate to your life? These are profound, fundamental questions that cannot be answered intellectually. If you think Bodhidharma lived long ago or that he went to China from India to establish the Chan school or even that he is the ancestor of our school, then you are not a Chan practitioner. If you want to know what Chan is, you have to know what it is not: Emptiness is not some abstract idea; it is not some truth outside you; it cannot be understood through words or language. You swim in it, bathe in it, yet you wonder where the water is. Those who have been studying for some time know that Chan is not some idea, state, or anything that can be grasped. It is right here, this moment. Look!
For a person stuck on words and language, this story becomes a conundrum: “Why did Zhaozhou say that? What does the cypress tree have to do with Bodhidharma? Is that a special tree? Drive home this “Why, why, why!” You want to know yet don’t know.

Low's Comment

It is the very thereness of the tree that is at issue for Zhaozhou. His response is not unlike Van Gogh's irises or Cezanne's apples. To know the irises as Van Gogh knew them, or the apples as Cezanne knew them, one must be the irises, be the apples. In Zen it is said one should sit like an oak tree with its roots deep into the ground, its branches lost in the sky, immutable, whole. If one has done this one will have no difficulty with Zhaozhou's oak tree in the garden, and one will know the radical diference between thereness and overthereness. Zhaozhou's oak tree is everywhere.

Sekida's Comment

"The oak tree in the garden." We can well imagine that Joshu himself was personally familiar with every tree, stone, flower, weed, and clump of moss in the precincts of his temple -- as intimately acquainted with them as if they were his own relatives.
I once visited an old priest who lived by himself in his temple. He cited the Zen question, "The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion has a thousand hands and a thousand eyes; which is the true eye?" He then said, "I could not understand this for a long time. But the other day, when I looked at the pine trees bending before the cold blasts from the mountain, I suddenly realized the meaning. All the boughs, branches, twigs, and leaves simultaneously bend to the wind with tremendous vigor."

Senzaki's Comment

The question 'Why did Bodhidharma come to China?' was the same expression as 'What is Zen?' Zhaozhou's response is obviously gentle, but it contains a secret power that can steal away all your delusions before you recognize it.

Shibayama's Comment

The questioning monk apparently presupposed that a holy, fundamental Truth like "the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West" must have very sacred, lofty, and profound significance. Master Zhaozhou saw through the monk's mind and tried to smash his bias. People usually think of the Buddha mind in contrast to the ignorant mind, interpret objectivity as standing over against subjectivity, and understand the oak tree as a visible thing in front of them. Zen demands that we break through these fixed limitations and be reborn in the new world of quite another dimension. This answer, "the oak tree," was Zhaozhou's compassionate means to depreive his disciples of all their knowledge and intellect so that they would cast away all dualistic distinctions such as subject and object, I and you. He wished somehow to awaken them to the absolutely free and ever new Zen spirituality. When the whole universe is the oak tree, there is nothing that is not the oak tree -- or there is not even I-myself.

Yamada's Comment

"The oak tree in the garden." With this answer Zhaozhou presented the world of oneness, which is nothing but the whole universe. The oak tree in the garden does not simply mean the oak tree as an object. It does not belong to the objective world. Any sound is sufficient. Anything, at any time, is the perfect manifestiation of Mu, or the primal face, or the essential nature. As a test, just say, "The oak tree there in the garden." What difference is there between that and Mu?

Wick's Comment

This expression of Zhaozhou's, the cypress tree in the garden, contains everything -- if you really see it. One cypress tree attests to the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the west, to the ultimate meaning of Zen, to your true self before your parents were born. If you're attached anywhere to an external, objective tree, then it becomes the concrete world, the objective world. If there's an object, there is also a subject. The subject is our ego-grasping mind full of its concepts. We become attached to those concepts and ideas and then we become deluded. We begin to believe our thoughts, our ideas, and our images. If you see that there's no objectivity or subjectivity, then you'll see that the cypress tree in the garden is rooted in complete freedom.

Daido Loori's's Comment (Dogen's 300)

Zhaozhou's Zen cuts off the myriad streams and stuns the mind. There is just no place to take hold of it. This cypress tree is not to be found in the world of phenomena, nor can it be found in the realm of emptiness. Then where shall we search for it?
Putting aside the cypress tree, I ask you, what is the meaning of the Ancestor's coming from India? If you can clearly see into the monastic's question, you will see through Zhaozhou's response.
If you think there's any meaning whatsoever, then you won't be able to save even yourself. If you say there is no meaning, you are still a hundred miles from the truth. What will you say?

Extended Case -- with Daido's Interjections (Dogen's 300)

A monastic asked Zhaozhou, "What is the meaning of the Ancestor's (Bodhidharma's) coming from India?"
   Again?
Zhaozhou said, "The cypress tree in the garden."
   Open your eyes.
The monastic said, "Master, please don't teach using an object."
   What is he talking about?
Zhaozhou said, "I am not showing an object to you."
   The old man tried to set it straight.
The monastic said, "What is the meaning of the Ancestor's coming from India?"
   Again?
Zhaozhou said, "The cypress tree in the garden."
   Why even bother? Let him go on deceiving himself.

Daido's Verse

Nothing whatsoever to say.
The pine trees singing
in spring's warm breeze.
The ten thousand hymns of forest and wind
fill the river valley.

Vernon Small's Verse

Zhaozhou's "Cypress Tree"

Speaking of August,
fog. Astonishing how it moves
the cypress.
Below a faucet, winter grass.

Sturmer's Verse

Sometimes the paths are gold
and the hills are green.
Other times the sea is green
and the clouds are gold.
Small figures are riding horses,
carrying palanquins, rowing boats.
When an ox cart enters the courtyard
sparrows fly out of the cypress trees.

Hotetsu's Verse

Down, down go the roots; out, out go the branches --
In the winter, standing bare; in the spring, clad in fresh leaves:
The reason and meaning of all that you ask.

Appendix: Alternate Translations

Case

A monk asked Zhaozhou in all earnestness, “What is the meaning of the Ancestor's coming from the West?” Zhaozhou said, “The oak tree in the garden.”

Aitken: A monk asked Chao-chou, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?” Chao-chou said, “The oak tree in the courtyard.” (Note: The ideograph translated as "oak" is rendered "cypress" by modern Chinese scholars, "oak" by their Japanese colleagues.)

Cleary: A monk asked Zhaozhou, "What is the living meaning of Zen?" Zhaozhou said, "The cypress tree in the yard."

Guo Gu: Once when a monk asked Zhaozhou, “What is the meaning of the Ancestor coming from the west?” Zhaozhou said, “The cypress tree in the courtyard.”

Hinton: A monk asked Master Visitation-Land: “What is it, that ch’i-mind Bodhidharma brought from the West?” Land replied: “That cypress in our courtyard.”

Low: "What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the West?” “The oak tree in the garden.”

Sekida: A monk asked Jōshū, “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming to China?” Jōshū said, “The oak tree in the garden.”

Senzaki: A monk asked Joshu, “Why did Bodhidharma come to China?” Joshu said, “The cypress tree in the garden.”

Shibayama: A monk once asked Joshu, “What is the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming from the West?” Joshu answered, ‘‘The oak tree in the front garden.”

Wumen's Verse

Words do not express the fact, /Speech does not match the student; /Attached to words, one loses the reality, /Stagnating in phrases, one is deluded.

Aitken: Words do not convey the fact; /language is not an expedient. /Attached to words, your life is lost; /blocked by phrases, you are bewildered.

Cleary: Words do not set forth facts. /Speech does not accord with situations; /Those who take up words perish. /Those who linger over sayings get lost.

Guo Gu: Words cannot reveal it. /Speech does not rise up to the occasion. /Those who inherit words will perish; /Those who stick to phrases are lost.

Hinton: Words can’t say the life of things; /nor talk render the loom of origins. /Depend on words and you’re lost; /refuse them and you live delusion.

Low and Sekida: Words cannot express things, /Speech does not convey the spirit. /Swayed by words, one is lost; /Blocked by phrases, one is bewildered.

Senzaki: Words cannot express it. /Words cannot deliver the heart's message. /If you take words literally, you will miss it. /If you try to explain it with words, you will remain deluded.

Shibayama: Words do not convey actualities; /Letters do not embody the spirit of the mind. /He who attaches himself to words is lost; /He who abides with letters will remain in ignorance.