Zen Poems of China and Japan

The Crane's Bill

Lucien Stryk, Takashi Ikemoto

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780802198266
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

"Excellent... A fine introduction to Chinese and Japanese Zen poetry for all readers" from the editors of Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter ( Choice ). Capturing in verse the ageless spirit of Zen, these 150 poems reflect the insight of famed masters from the ninth century to the nineteenth. The translators, in collaboration with Zen Master Taigan Takayama, have furnished illuminating commentary on the poems and arranged them as to facilitate comparison between the Chinese and Japanese Zen traditions. The poems themselves, rendered in clear and powerful English, offer a unique approach to Zen Buddhism, "compared with which, " as Lucien Stryk writes, "the many disquisitions on its meaning are as dust to living earth. We see in these poems, as in all important religious art, East or West, revelations of spiritual truths touched by a kind of divinity." "One of the most intimate and dynamic books yet published on Zen." —Sanford Goldstein, Arizona Quarterly

NOTES

1. The lumberjacks represent those, including Chin-doba’s fellow monks, who do not follow properly the way leading to enlightenment, the goal of Zen, suggested by the vision of the crimson flowers.

2, 3. After twenty years of serious application the poet, on rolling the blind, thought he had gained satori. This poem was rejected by his master as an inadequate expression of his experience, however, and Chokei wrote poem No. 3, which more than satisfied his master.

4. “I’m through the Gate,” i.e., I’ve had an awakening, with the result that I feel ashamed that, while held in his arms, I have been seeking my “dear old grandpa,” the Dharmakaya (Buddha nature).

5. Seeking the “Original Man,” i.e., an awakening. Here Chosha echoes Lao Tzu in the Too Teh Ching:

We look and do not see the Way: its name is Colorless.
We listen and do not hear the Way: its name is Soundless.
We grope and do not grasp the Way: its name is Bodiless.

6. Satori lights up the world, and comes with “avoiding thought” or “no-mind” (wu-hsin). The Sixth Patriarch, Hui-neng, insisted that meditation should be “pure seeing,” which alone discloses truth. One must not look at reality, but as reality.

7. Enlightenment is a spiritual cleansing, a return to the purity of the Original Self, of which the jewel is a common Zen symbol. It is said that Ikuzanchu gained satori when, while crossing a bridge, he was thrown by his donkey.

8. Though one must prepare oneself in the hope of an awakening, it will never come to one who “frets” about it: whatever one does, wherever one goes, it occurs when one is “ready,” never before.

9. The first two lines, from the Lotus Sutra, threw the monk into a “great doubt,” which often precedes satori but which disappears at once with its attainment—thus the two concluding lines.

10. Bodhidharma (A.D. 470–543?), Zen’s First Patriarch, was an Indian monk who arrived in China in the seventh year of the Futsu Era (520), though the date is disputed, some claiming that he arrived during the Liu Sung Era, 420–479. He was the twenty-eighth Patriarch of Indian “Zen” Buddhism, and introduced a school of the philosophy which, combining with the indigenous Chinese Taoism, became Zen. China had received other schools of Buddhism as early as the second century B.C. The Sorei Range was the mountain route over which Western culture, including Buddhism, entered China. Etsuzan, on looking up at the sunlight in Zephyr Hall, experienced satori, thus was not bound by history or anything else, as suggested by the last two lines.

11. Rodohin’s master asked him, “In what way does a grain of millet contain the universe?” [At which Rodo-hin identified with pure perception.] As Rodohin had been a Taoist, the utensils associated with the philosophy—harp, gourd and bag—are mentioned.

12. Zuigan awakened on hearing his master’s question, i.e., answered it by realizing “what comes” within himself. He was astonished to discover, however, that though transformed by the experience he was as if completely dead to himself.

13. Kokuin asked his master, “What happens if I return from Treasure Mountain empty-handed?” The master’s reply: “There’s a firebrand before each house.” Which opened Kokuin’s eyes. Satori comes and passes like a stranger on the road, nothing marvelous in itself perhaps yet overwhelming in its effects on one’s life. It is a seeing into one’s essential nature, a great clarity illuminating the whole of life. It passes like a stranger because it is conceptually ungraspable, in ordinary terms inexpressible—hence the attempts to suggest it in poetry.

14. Not only must one avoid “fretting” about enlightenment, one must forget all about it, along with simple moral categories. Then, as it did to Rijunkyoku, it will come.

15. The first line is a kigo (one whose meaning resists conceptualization, expresses satori experience), the second line is meant to suggest the ardent salvationism (golden lion) of the true Zennist. The last two lines mean that the attainment (reaching the North Star) can come only as a result of living calmly and purely in the here and now (represented here by the South Star).

16. Now that Joju has left “mind” and is “refined,” he is able to appreciate the genius of Li Po (701–762) the most nonchalant, irresponsible and Zen (or Taoist) spirited poet of Tang Dynasty China. When “in doubt” Joju could not possibly have understood so free a spirit; now he can. Joju had satori on hearing his master say, “The Buddha and the Patriarchs are no more of two minds than the fist and its clenched fingers.”

17. One is reminded by Ritangen’s poem of the famous saying of Ch’ing-yuan:

Before I had studied Zen I saw mountains as mountains, waters as waters. When I learned something of Zen, the mountains were no longer mountains, waters no longer waters. But now that I understand Zen, I am at peace with myself, seeing mountains once again as mountains, waters as waters.

Ritangen’s master puzzled him with the question, “Where does life come from?” He awakened when, pointing to his chest, the master cried, “It’s in there! That’s all you have to know.”

18. In gratitude for his awakening, Ryozan bows to the First Patriarch. As in poem No. 7, the gem (or jewel) represents the purity of the Original Self. Zen monks often “time” their meditation by burning incense sticks in front of them, one stick lasting for around half an hour. Usually two or three sticks are burned in a meditation period.

19. An awakening is often preceded by a descent to the depths, the great doubt referred to above, and “precipice” and “abyss” images abound in Zen poetry. With freedom, Koseisoku finds the world “ordinary” once again.

20. Seigensai had satori when he “solved” the koan “Maitreya preaches this.” Once one understands, enlightened, the nature of the world, one need no longer depend on others, including one’s master. The humor of the first couple of lines gives a sense of the poet’s newfound freedom.

21. Ni-buttsu, a nun, had satori when, on asking a question of her master, she was struck and shoved out the door. The last words spoken by the Buddha were, “And now, O priests, I take my leave of you; all the constituents of being are transitory; work out your [own] salvation with diligence.” As the preceding piece, this poem proclaims the importance of self-sufficiency, won with satori. Nothing, the delights of the earth themselves, can interfere with that awareness.

22. Tosu had gained no satori for years, and one day was severely reprimanded by his master. With great resolve he undertook the strictest kind of discipline for a full month, awakening at the sound of the night bell. There are numerous instances in the history of Zen of similar experiences, a well-known one the subject of the following anecdote:

For three years Koshu (1839–1905), the great master Gizan’s disciple, was unable to gain satori. At the beginning of a special seven-day period of discipline he thought his chance had come, and he climbed the tower of the temple gate, where he made the following vow: “Either I realize my dream up here, or they’ll find my dead body at the foot of the tower.” He went without food or sleep, giving himself up to constant zazen, but at last had to admit to himself that he had failed. He moved slowly toward the tower railing and slowly lifted a leg over it, at which instant he had an awakening. Overjoyed, he rushed down the stairs and through the rain to Gizan’s room. “Bravo!” cried the master before Koshu had a chance to speak. “You’ve finally had your day!”

The last line of Tosu’s poem, a kigo, might be interpreted in this way: as the result of satori the poet destroys his illusions, for which the “mud bull” is a traditional symbol. The “coral” here would represent Buddha-wisdom.

23. Ten-i awakened when the pole on which he was carrying two water buckets snapped. The poet’s satori made him the match of the great Vimalakirti, whom even a Bodhisattva like Manjusri could not outwit when it came to understanding of “non-duality.”

24. Seiken, a government official, was strongly devoted to Zen, and gained enlightenment in the manner described in his poem. Zen has had many distinguished laymen whose attainments are justly celebrated, Dr. D. T. Suzuki and the contemporary poet Shinkichi Taka-hashi among them.

25. Choro was enlightened upon placing his foot on a brick step. The third line suggests that what he awakened to was not so extraordinary after all, his true self: something to laugh over.

26. Joho had satori when he happened to overhear a fellow monk read aloud the following:

The great master Yakusan was returning to his temple with a bundle of firewood when a monk asked him, “Where have you been?” Yakusan replied, “I’ve got firewood.” The monk pointed to Yakusan’s sword and said, “It sounds tap-tap. What in the world is it?” At which the master unsheathed the sword and assumed a warrior’s stance.

Satori, as the last two lines signify, removes all obstacles to Truth, which is everywhere.

27. During mondo (rapid questions and answers) with Master Daie in the latter’s room, Kyochu had a thorough awakening when the master let out with a Zen cry. The last line: things are complete in themselves, are not “interchangeable.”

28. While grappling with the “oak tree” koan (Monk: “What’s the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming over here?” Joshu: “The oak tree in the courtyard.” Cf. the thirty-seventh koan in Mumonkan), Chokyusei heard a frog croak and immediately grasped the point of the koan. The master Gensha had satori when, on a mountain path, he tripped on a stone, hurting his foot. Gensha expressed his Zen conviction in this utterance: “Bo-dhidharma didn’t come to China, Eka did not succeed to the patriarchate.”

29. As the master Muyo spoke of the koan Joshu’s Mu (Nothingness), Myotan parted his lips as if to say something, receiving a heavy blow from the master’s shippei (bamboo stick around three feet long carried by masters for “demonstration purposes”) and, then and there, achieving enlightenment. Poisoned drum: the legend is that it kills all who hear it; it symbolizes those utterances of the masters serving to “exterminate” illusions.

30. Waiting to die in the mountains, the master composed this poem while standing on a bridge spanning the Dokei Gorge. As the first two lines indicate, and as was understood by all, the master’s death poem was meant to guide his disciples.

31. The Double Peak, the Yellow Plum and the White Omen are mountains where, respectively, the Sixth Patriarch, the Fifth Patriarch and Shien, Seiko’s master, had lived. The Law of the last line is the Dharma, made up of the essential principles of Buddhism.

32. Hotei was thought, by some, to be an incarnation of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the “Buddha of the Future.” Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who, in spite of being qualified for nirvanic withdrawal from the world, vow to remain among men, in Samsara, until all are free. Hotei wanted with this poem to make his disciples aware of the omnipresent Maitreya.

33. The poem suggests the great freedom that comes with an awakening. Above “life/death” (Samsara), the poet is now able to work for the benefit of all sentient beings.

34. Nansen died on reciting this poem, after having the following dialogue with a monk:

Monk: Master, where will you be a hundred years from now?
Nansen: I’ll be an ox at the foot of this mountain.
Monk: May I follow you?
Nansen: Yes, but make sure to come with a blade of grass gripped between the teeth.

As Dogen wrote in one of the essays in Shobogenzo (The Correct-Law Eye Treasury):

It is fallacious to think that you simply move from birth to death. Birth from the Buddhist point of view, is a temporary point between the preceding and the succeeding; hence it can be called birth-lessness. The same holds for death and deathless-ness. In life there is nothing more than life, in death nothing more than death: we are being born and are dying at every moment.

35. While sitting in meditation, and just after having said aloud for the benefit of his disciples, “No suppressing arrival, no following departure,” Daibai heard a weasel shriek, the “this” of the poem. It is said that on reciting the poem he breathed his last.

36. An anecdote which is often used as a koan may very well illustrate Kiyo’s realization that directions, categories and individuation itself are meaningless:

One day Hyakujo and his master, Baso, saw a flight of wild geese. Baso asked, “Where are they flying?” Hyakujo: “They have already flown away, Master.” At this Baso tweaked his disciple’s nose until he cried out in pain. Then Baso said, “You claim they have flown away, but they’ve been there all along, from the very beginning.” At this Hyakujo had satori.

The “gray old man” of the poem is Kiyo himself, who though soon to die, will not “go,” as he has not “come.”

37. Beirei seems to be asserting the fundamental Zen viewpoint that the only thing worth examining, understanding is oneself in the here and now. Trying to understand the Patriarchs, Scripture, etc. is a waste of time, distracts from the real issues of the life of meditation. The objection to “learning” is that it inevitably leads to presuppositions concerning the nature of the world, a philosophy the creation of others, whereas meditation and the pure perception which must accompany it may lead to insight into the very nature of things, the world not yet “created, conceptualized, made philosophy.”

38. Godai Chitsu addresses himself in the third line. No longer intimidated by the examples of others, free to roam in the Absolute, he is his own man. The South Star, and the North, frequently encountered in Zen literature (cf. poem No. 15), are meant to suggest the untram-meled satori mentality.

39. In thirty years Juro would have gained many “disciplinary merits,” else he could not have remained at one temple for so long a time. The self-effacing tone of the first two lines is countered by the confidence of the last two. The question “Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?” is often asked, as a koan. Mokuchin’s nonchalance has precedence in the founder of one of the three major sects of Zen, the Rinzai (the other two sects—Soto and Obaku), the Master Rinzai:

Those who are true seekers of the truth must take nothing as Buddhas, Bodhisattvas or Arhats, nothing as admirable in the world. They are to be completely independent, unconcerned. They should smash the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Arhats, attaining freedom only when they have attained freedom from them.

40. The first two lines refer to Buddha’s important doctrine, “Origination in a Sequential Series,” in which the individual is seen as a combination of name and form, the former including all the subjective phenomena of thought and feeling, the latter standing for the four elements of physical nature (earth, water, fire, air). It is karma which unites the components of an “individual” and preserves its identity. Buddhism’s purpose is to destroy karma, dissolve the elements. In the last line the poet expresses total (and contented) resignation by referring to the crematory fire meant for his body after death.

41. Ryuko, solicitous to the last, maintains for the benefit of his disciples the importance of moderation, the need for self-discipline. His poem is offered as an example of the kind written by perhaps less than exceptional but nonetheless influential Zen masters who, by the example of their lives, assure the perpetuation of the philosophy.

42. The first two lines suggest the poet’s philosophical freedom. Whenever it is proper to do so, he can push aside the mat used when he is wearing his Buddhist robe. Though the moment appears to be a highly dramatic one, ye...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Foreword by Taigan Takayama
• Introduction by Takashi Ikemoto
• Preface: Zen Poetry by Lucien Stryk
• CHINA
• JAPAN
• NOTES
• foreword_fn01
• intro_fn01