Return to Summer/Fall 2003
Nam Cheon’s Flowering Tree
From a talk by Zen Master Wu Kwang, based on Case 40 of The Blue Cliff Record, case 340 in The Whole World Is a Single Flower.
As officer Yu Kan was talking to Zen Master Nam Cheon, he remarked, “Master of the teachings Ge Poep Sa once said, “Heaven, earth and I have the same root. Ten thousand things and I are one body. This is outrageous”—meaning marvelous, incredible, far out…outrageous.
Nam Cheon pointed to a flower in the garden. He called to the officer and said, “People these days see this flowering tree as a dream.”
Then, Zen Master Seung Sahn’s commentary:
Open your mouth, big mistake. Close your mouth, the whole universe and you are never separate. Wake up, wake up! What do you see now? What do you hear now? Go ask the dog and the cat, and they will teach you.
Nam Cheon, one of the great Zen masters in China during the Tang Dynasty, was born in 747 AD and lived to 834, so into his 80s. He received instruction from his first teacher at the age of 10, but did not become a fully ordained monk until he was 30. He made a detailed study of the monks’ rules, then traveled around China, staying at different temples, studying sutra teachings and the Middle Way philosophy. Under the direction of Zen Master Ma Jo, he became awakened at about the age of 40.
After that, according to his biography, he immediately freed himself of everything he had learned previously—meaning he did not cling to any ideas or concepts from all the scriptural or doctrinal teachings that he had embodied. After Ma Jo died in the year 788, Nam Cheon, then 41, set off on a pilgrimage, calling on many other Zen masters all around China. At the age of 48, he went to the top of Mount Nam Cheon, living in relative seclusion in a small temple. He stayed there 30 years, never coming down from the mountain.
Students, however, stayed with him, the most famous being Zen Master Joju. When Nam Cheon was in his late 70s, the military governor, Officer Yu Kan, entreated him to come down and teach more widely. Officer Yu Kan was one of 17 successors who became teachers.
This kong-an takes place when Yu Kan is still a student. The other person, referred to as Ge Poep Sa, was the monk Seng Chao, who lived in China much earlier than Nam Cheon. He was born in 378 and died in 414. He was, actually, pre-Zen in China.
When Dharma Master Chao was young, he had studied Taoist teachings, like those of Lau Tsu and Chuang Tsu. But at one time he was copying the Vimalakirti sutra and had an awakening experience as he was focusing on it. He then felt that Buddhism was more thorough than Taoism, so he became a monk and studied under Kumarajiva. He wrote an important treatise—the one that Officer Yu Kan is quoting here in the kong-an. The essence of his teaching was that the myriad phenomena we encounter are oneself.
So the kong-an says that as they were walking in the garden together, the officer and Nam Cheon, the officer said, “Master of the teachings Ge said, ‘Heaven, earth and I all have the same root.’” In Taoist philosophy, heaven and earth represent two universal polarities: creative and receptive. The two terms were widely and commonly used by Chinese people, similar to yin and yang. In this statement—“Heaven and earth and I all have the same root”—heaven and earth are not so important; root is most important there. So the question is, “What is this root that heaven, earth and I share identically?” What is it that we all share in common? What is the root of that?”
In the Heart Sutra it says, “All dharmas are marked by emptiness.” That means all phenomena condition each other and that none can subsist on their own. And that means good makes bad, bad makes good; white conditions black, black conditions white; you listening conditions me talking, my talking conditions your listening. The fact that you are right now at this moment acting as students makes me the Zen master. The fact that I am the teacher defines you as the students. All inter-dependent. So the basic truth of everything is that everything shares in this root of interdependence.
In another place in the same treatise, Ge Poep Sa said, “Understand the ten thousand things as yourself.” Buddhism speaks a lot of two things, wisdom and compassion. Wisdom is to perceive clearly the truth that we are all sharing in this same root of interdependency.
Compassion is the activity of that truth. Or, as Zen Master Seung Sahn sometimes says, “Enlightenment’s job.” In Zen you hear a lot about enlightenment, enlightenment, enlightenment. But what is enlightenment’s job? Enlightenment’s job is compassion, compassionate activity.
There is one more sentence of Dharma Master Ge’s treatise: “The ultimate person is empty, without form; yet none of the ten thousand things are not one’s own doing.” That is about participation. If there is a war going on in the world, if there is sadness going on in some way, I participate in that. It is my doing. Not, it’s over there and has nothing to do with me. Likewise, if someone is quite prosperous or successful or joyful, that also is my doing. I participate in that.
In the Lotus Sutra, there is a parable. A poor man goes to visit his wealthy friend. The friend has prepared a banquet. They sit and eat and drink quite a bit of alcohol. The poor man gets quite drunk and full, and goes to sleep.
The rich friend has to leave on business, but does not want to wake the poor friend. He also wants to give him something to help him with his condition and plight. So he sews a precious gem into the lining of the poor man’s robe. Then he leaves and goes on his trip.
Later, the poor man wakes from his drunken stupor and realizes that his friend has left, so he leaves the house and begins to travel again. He is having a hard time just eking out a living, hiring himself out in various places for food and lodging. He goes on this way, barely existing, for quite a while.
The rich man, seeing his pitiful condition, asks, “How could you be so foolish as to continue existing like this?
[we are missing the end of the article. If you have it, please email info@chogyezencenter.org]