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Ten Successors

Zen pupils take a vow that even if they are killed by their teacher, they intend to learn Zen. Usually they cut a finger and seal their resolution with blood. In time the vow has become a mere formality, and for this reason the pupil who died by the hand of Ekido was made to appear a martyr.

Ekido had become a severe teacher. His pupils feared him. One of them on duty, striking the gong to tell the time of day, missed his beats when his eye was attracted by a beautiful girl passing the temple gate.

At that moment Ekido, who was directly behind him, hit him with a stick and the shock happened to kill him.

The pupil's guardian, hearing of the accident, went directly to Ekido. Knowing that he was not to blame, he praised the master for his severe teaching. Ekido's attitude was just the same as if the pupil were still alive.

After this took place, he was able to produce under his guidance more than ten enlightened successors, a very unusual number.

Hui-ke Offers His Arm

Bodhidharma sat in a cave for nine years gazing at the wall. Hui-ke arrived to inquire about the dharma, but Bodhidharma refused to teach him. Finally, taking a knife, Hui-ke cut off his own arm and presented it as an offering to Bodhidharma, who agreed to become his teacher.

Ryonen's Clear Realization

The Buddhist nun known as Ryonen was born in 1797. She was a granddaughter of the famous Japanese warrior Shingen. Her poetical genius and alluring beauty were such that at seventeen she was serving the empress as one of the ladies of the court. Even at such a youthful age fame awaited her.

The beloved empress died suddenly and Ryonen's hopeful dreams vanished. She became acutely aware of the impermanency of life in this world. It was then that she desired to study Zen.

Her relatives disagreed, however, and practically forced her into marriage. With a promise that she might become a nun after she had borne three children, Ryonen assented. Before she was twenty-five she had accomplished this condition. Then her husband and relatives could no longer dissuade her from her desire. She shaved her head, took the name of Ryonen, which means to realize clearly, and started on her pilgrimage.

She came to the city of Edo and asked Tetsugyu to accept her as a disciple. At one glance the master rejected her because she was too beautiful.

Ryonen then went to another master, Hakuo. Hakuo refused her for the same reason, saying that her beauty would only make trouble.

Ryonen obtained a hot iron and placed it against her face. In a few moments her beauty had vanished forever.

Hakuo then accepted her as a disciple.

Commemorating this occasion, Ryonen wrote a poem on the back of a little mirror:

    In the service of my Empress I burned incense to
        perfume my exquisite clothes
    Now as a homeless mendicant I burn my face to
        enter a Zen temple.

When Ryonen was about to pass from this world, she wrote another poem:

    Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld the changing
        scene of autumn
    I have said enough about moonlight,
    Ask no more.
    Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no
        wind stirs.



It seems to me that a certain level of urgency is required for the thought pattern of identification to 'gather itself' and truly gaze at reality without preconceptions and beliefs.

I've been remembering how desperate i was to find the truth, just before liberation.

How does this level of urgency arise?  Where did my agonies of existence come from?  It built up for years from the seeds of countless generations of human hypocrisy. 

In school, history lessons on slavery made me embarrassed to have been born white.
In church the violence of the crucifixion of Jesus captivated my attention with horror and intrigue in equal parts.  What would cause a human to allow something like that to happen to himself?  This dramatic story was balanced against the hypocrisy of the christians at my church who would talk shit about each other after Sunday service.

The desperation doesn't come to a head without a lot of distracting whining from the illusory self.  This can go on for years.

So far, there's one key contemplation that for me, seems to cut through and awaken the urgency and desperation well.  This is the reality of death.  when the impermanence of all things, including every single item currently assumed to be part of one's self, is faced directly, it seems the momentum of the identification patterns can be shifted.  One must consider that everything one thinks one loves will die.  saying goodbye is a moment by moment reality.  Everything that has been, has gone.  Hoping or believing in an afterlife for a personal entity does not really mean a you gets to go on forever, does it?  Question these ideas.  Face them.  Awaken the urgency. 

What would you do to know the truth?