Tongan Guanzhi
Master Mohan
Guanzhi went visiting and called upon Master Moshan.
Moshan asked, Reverend, are you here sightseeing, or have you come seeking the Buddhadharma?Guanzhi replied I seek the Dharma.
So Moshan went to her quarters (yes, MoShan was a female Zen master) and Guanzhi called upon her there for a private conversation.
Moshan asked: Where have you come from today?
From the intersection on the main road.
Moshan : ‘Why don’t you remove your hat?’ ( He is signaling he isn’t sure she is worth staying around for)
Guanzhi hesitated a bit, then removed his hat. He then asked ‘What is the nature of Mt Mo?’
(Mo shan literally means the Peak of a Mountain) She replied ‘The summit is not revealed.’
Guanzhi asked ‘Who is the master of Mt Mo?’
Moshan:’ It does not have the form of female or male.’
Guanzhi replied with a shout HO! (He had been studying with Linji, so we hear where he is coming from) Then he asked ‘Why doesn’t it transform itself?’
Moshan : ‘It is not a God or a demon, so what would it change itself into?’
Capping verse: Daido Loori
The summit is not revealed, not even a shadow. Neither female nor male, how can you approach it?
Dropping off the skin bag, casting off the mask of red flesh directly. The nose is vertical, the eyes horizontal.
by Korin Swann
The Vimalakirtinirdesha Sutra tells the story of layman Vimalakirti who lives in a house where he is visited by all kinds of beings. . One of the beings living is a goddess. One day, the Buddha’s disciple, Sariputra, comes to call on Vimalakirti and encounters the goddess. Not one to mince words, or perhaps shocked to see a female in the great Vimalakirti’s home, Sariputra asks the goddess, “Why don’t you change your female sex?”
The goddess answers, “I have been living here twelve years looking for the innate characteristics of the female sex and haven’t been able to find any, so how can I change what I can’t find? If someone asks, ‘Why don’t you change your female sex?’ what is he really asking?”
The goddess then uses her power to change Sariputra into a likeness of herself and change herself into a likeness of Sariputra, saying, “All things are without any determinate, innate characteristics, so how can you ask, ‘Why don’t you change your female sex?’ Why don’t YOU now change your female sex?”
Sariputra, in the form of a goddess, answers, “I do not know how I changed into a female form so how can I change back to a male form?”
The goddess responds, “Sariputra, just as you are not really a woman but appear to be female in form, all women also only appear to be female in form but are not really women. That is why the Buddha said that we are not really men or women.”
Then the goddess, using her supernatural power, changed Sariputra back into his own form.
We often think koans are mysterious and inexplicable, but when we delve in we find that everything refers to something else. If we follow the dense web of references we find the koan unfolding. Moshan here is referencing a Mahayana sutra that points directly to the absolute. She knew the teachings of Linji, her contemporary. Linji often talked about Host and Guest. Host and Guest was first referenced in the Surangama Sutra. It is, of course, a Mahayana Sutra probably composed in China, but it retrospectively puts in the mouth of the Buddha these words: ” Beings have not awakened fully because they are confused by afflictions that visit them, coming and going”. He talked about these afflictions that come and go as Guests, while the Innkeeper was always present, the Host. The Host is the Absolute, while the phenomena of the Relative world are the Guests that come and go.
This case appeared in Dogen’s Shobogenzo, in Raihai Tokuzui, or Prostrating to Attainment of the Marrow, in which he discusses what should be sought in a teacher. He suggests a teacher is beyond the question of male or female, but should be someone ineffable. “ too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words” He goes on to suggest that “we might hope that trees and stones preach to us…we should question outdoor pillars, and we should investigate fences and walls.” Dogen is speaking her of how even inanimate beings expound the Dharma. The Dharma is ineffable, and beyond any words that might come from my mouth.
Linji said “ This mountain monk is telling you that within that lump of red flesh of yours is a true sage of no rank, constantly entering and exiting the openings of your face. Any of you who hasn’t figured this out yet, LOOK! LOOK!” This True Sage of No Rank is beyond any question of better than or lesser than, beyond any question of sex or gender, age or rank.
When he returned to Japan, someone asked Dōgen, “What did you bring back from China?” Dōgen answered, “I came back empty-handed. All I have is this: Eyes horizontal, nose vertical.” This became one of Dogen’s strongest teachings. It entered the Fukanzazengi, instructions for meditation as “ Be sure your ears are on a plane with your shoulders and your nose in line with your navel” People too often think it refers to posture and nothing more. But did Dogen return from China with nothing more than instructions on how to sit zazen, or is Dogen suggesting something about the universal human reality. Suzuki Roshi used the expression “things as it is” quite often. I was told that ‘things as it is’ was just his broken English, but he also used ‘things as they are’, so he clearly understood the difference. Things as they are is simply the nature of reality, the way things are. ‘Things as it is ‘ points to the central oneness found in the midst of the 10 thousand things. This ‘eyes horizontal, nose vertical’ is both a recognition of reality as a human being, and also the profound recognition of suchness.
Kobun said that the closest word in our European- descent world to tathagata was YHWH, or God’s declaration in Exodus “I am that I am.” I am that I am, eyes horizontal, nose vertical, or a true sage of no rank going in and out of your face….returning to the fukanzazengi- “ if you want to know suchness, be suchness, without delay. “ This too is an instruction for zazen, to be suchness.