“A lecture on Zen is always something in the nature of a hoax because it really does deal with a domain of experience that cannot be talked about.” – Alan Watts
“Many of the Zen anecdotes … not only border on the grotesque but are right there in the middle of it, and sound like the most crashing nonsense.” – C.G. Jung
By Sigurd Arild and Ryan Smith
Here are a couple of examples of Dharma Combat from the Zen tradition as well as our interpretations of them.
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First, an encounter between two masters:
“Master Zhaozhou went to visit Master Touzi. On the path to Touzi’s home, Zhaozhou met Touzi and asked, ‘Aren’t you Touzi?’ Instead of replying, Touzi demanded: ‘Give me some money to buy oil.’ Then he continued on his way to town. Zhaozhou proceeded down the road and reached the hut before its owner had completed his errands. There he waited. When Touzi returned, he was carrying a pitcher of oil. ‘I’d heard so much about the great Master Touzi,’ Zhaozhou remarked. ‘But all I see is an old peddler of oil.’ – ‘You see the peddler, but not Touzi,’ the other replied. ‘Where is Touzi then?’ Zhaozhou asked. ‘Oil for sale! Oil for sale!’ Touzi called out.”
First, when Touzi does not answer Zhaozhou’s initial question, he is refusing to allow himself to be distracted from his present errand (that of buying oil). In doing so, Touzi is keeping with the Zen teaching of remaining in single-pointed concentration throughout one’s doings, even when it comes to ordinary chores. When Touzi returns from the market, Zhaozhou issues a challenge: “I’d heard so much about the great Master Touzi” (i.e. “It seems you are not a great Zen adept after all”), Zhaozhou says in an attempt to get Touzi to engage. When Touzi replies, “You see the peddler, but not Touzi,” he is really saying that Zhaozhou only sees his own prejudice – he sees a lowly peddler of oil, but not the great Zen master who is fully committed to the simple chore that he is undertaking. But Touzi could not say, “I am a great Zen master, just undertaking a lowly task,” because the moment he said that, he would himself be clinging to the notion of being a great Zen master. And if Touzi did that, he would no longer be free to concentrate on the present business of selling oil. Then he would start having thoughts along the lines of, “I am really a great Zen master, posing as someone who undertakes a lowly task.” In such a case, he would no longer be truly undivided in his mind, but would have started differentiating reality into dualisms such as good and bad, high and low, better and worse. And if he did that, he would no longer be manifesting Zen insight.
In a way, the Zen mindset that Touzi is demonstrating in this story is not so different from the one expressed by Heraclitus when he says: “The wise is both willing and unwilling to be called by the name of Zeus.” (B32): If the wise man is willing to be called by the name of “Master” or Zeus, then he has set himself apart from the totality of the real: He has introduced distinctions into reality and is therefore no longer wise or a master in terms of meditative insight.
Therefore, when Zhaozhou asks, “Where is Touzi then?” (i.e. “Where is the great Zen Master then?”), he has not understood what Touzi is trying to tell him. Seeing this, Touzi doubles down and shouts: “Oil for sale! Oil for sale!” In doing so, he is again demonstrating that the true master is completely immersed in the task at hand, is expressing each now to its fullest (“You stand before me, saying that I am a lowly peddler, then by all means, let me be a lowly peddler”), and that he had let go of all clinging to ego (“You say that I am not a great Zen master after all, then by all means, let it be so”).
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Next, three adepts are traveling together. In this story, the circle signifies truth:
“Nan Chuan, Kuei Tsung, and Ma Ku were travelling together to pay their respects to grand teacher Chung. When they got halfway there, Nan Chuan drew a circle on the ground and said, ‘If you can speak, then let’s go on.’ Kuei Tsung sat down inside the circle. Then Ma Ku bowed. Nan Chuan said, ‘Then let’s not go on.'”
As we said, the circle signifies truth. So in drawing the circle, Nan Chuan was challenging his compatriots to say something about truth. But since Zen subscribes to Nagarjuna’s dialectics of emptiness, the truth is an absolute that is transcendent to properties. From a Zen perspective, it is therefore impossible to say something about truth. But on the other hand, if Zen monks never said anything, there would be no Zen in the first place. So the challenge of communicating something meaningful about truth is worthwhile, even though, according to Zen, it is also impossible.
In Zen, the real is beyond all concepts, definitions, properties, and ideas. So from a Zen perspective, as soon as you try to say something, you have immediately become entangled in falsehoods and you are no longer speaking about truth. This is why, when Nan Chuan drew the circle and asked his fellow monks to say something about it, Kuei Tsung merely sat down in the circle and did not speak a word. In sitting down to meditate, he was returning to a state that was devoid of speech and beyond dualisms and oppositions.
Ma Ku then bowed to Kuei Tsung. In doing so, he was expressing his approval of Kuei Tsung’s gesture. Responding to action with action, Kuei Tsung made plain that there is nothing to say and no place for discussions and words when it comes to matters of truth.
Seeing their actions, Nan Chuan replied, “Then let’s not go on.” What is the meaning of this utterance? Nan Chuan understood that there is nothing to discuss and no truth to be attained through discussion. Since all three of the monks had understood this, there was no reason to visit grand teacher Chung.
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Image in the article especially commissioned for this publication from artist Georgios Magkakis.