Case 73 never ends, and so we mourn Case 73, Sozan's Requited Filial Piety ...
It is rare that I feel that Wick Roshi punts a bit, or is somewhat off key, in his comments. However, in this case, I thought his commentary a bit missing or skipping over the point, so I investigated some other comments and a bit of the history of many of the references that are quite different (including one by Wick Roshi's own Teacher), and I am not sure why they seem to focus so differently on this. Sometimes "Buddha Eye" of the beholder, I suppose.
The Preface to the Assembly is filled with traditional images of Chinese demons, who do such things as cling to trees and grass tips. We are like demons and unrequited ghosts of the dead when unfulfilled, haunted by our grudges and anger and lack of realization. This is our demons within before Realization. Then, says the poem, all the traditional things done in Asia to appease the spirits of the dead such as offerings of money or a horse to ride to the other world, purifications with sprinkled water or an amulet, are not the real cure. What is the real cure for the ghost that needs to be appeased in your house (in you)? Of course, it is then pointing to the real cure as Zen Practice. Most commentaries seem to approach this so.
At this point, other commentaries (and I concur) say the Main Case is talking about Practice and life (not two, by the way) after realization (after the period of mourning is over, and one has requited one's obligation as a child of one's Teacher, the Buddhist Ancestors and Buddha). In traditional Asian countries, mourning for one's parents might require perhaps a year of semi-withdrawal from the world by a son, wearing special clothes and restricting one's enjoyments, appeasing the spirits of one's deceased ancestor. A monk too is like this in the search for Realization, appeasing his spirit. After that period of mourning, one takes off one's mourning clothes and returns to daily life. After Realization, one returns to the world too. One is back in the world, yet in a state of freedom, having calmed the spirits within, one has taken off the shackles and sackcloth.
Of course, one should not (in China) get literally "stumbling drunk" and dance & joyously sing during a period of mourning or as a monk in training, or fall down intoxicated even after if a Buddhist priest (although, yes, Japanese Buddhist priests do tend to drink a bit in hopeful moderation, as Rev. Wick points out). The reference to that probably does not mean literal drunkenness, but spiritually drunk and forgetting of the self. Yamada Roshi says ...
The Appreciatory Verse begins with references to Realization of the Absolute, the Gateless Gate, or as put in one Translation, "The pure and white gate has no neighbors at all in four directions. " Some comments say that this is the state of Total Emptiness, not a thing in any direction. No mourners and nobody to mourn, nothing to Realize and nobody to Realize so. But the next sentence on sweeping for years means years of continued Practice nonetheless in which we must exercise care, live diligently, not to let in the dusts of greed, anger and ignorance (those ugly demons).
The following sentences are filled with references to the interpenetration of both ways of knowing this life ... empty of anything to sweep, yet dusts to sweep, full light yet partial moons. Traditionally, Zen Masters of old used the hexagrams of the I-Ching and Yin-Yang, or the different phases of the moon, to represent the different phases of interpenetrating absolute-relative(see below).
One translation closes the poem (again, speaking of the spiritual, not spirits in a bottle) ...
Anyway. I wonder why Wick Roshi left all that alone this time?
Gassho, J
SatToday
It is rare that I feel that Wick Roshi punts a bit, or is somewhat off key, in his comments. However, in this case, I thought his commentary a bit missing or skipping over the point, so I investigated some other comments and a bit of the history of many of the references that are quite different (including one by Wick Roshi's own Teacher), and I am not sure why they seem to focus so differently on this. Sometimes "Buddha Eye" of the beholder, I suppose.
The Preface to the Assembly is filled with traditional images of Chinese demons, who do such things as cling to trees and grass tips. We are like demons and unrequited ghosts of the dead when unfulfilled, haunted by our grudges and anger and lack of realization. This is our demons within before Realization. Then, says the poem, all the traditional things done in Asia to appease the spirits of the dead such as offerings of money or a horse to ride to the other world, purifications with sprinkled water or an amulet, are not the real cure. What is the real cure for the ghost that needs to be appeased in your house (in you)? Of course, it is then pointing to the real cure as Zen Practice. Most commentaries seem to approach this so.
At this point, other commentaries (and I concur) say the Main Case is talking about Practice and life (not two, by the way) after realization (after the period of mourning is over, and one has requited one's obligation as a child of one's Teacher, the Buddhist Ancestors and Buddha). In traditional Asian countries, mourning for one's parents might require perhaps a year of semi-withdrawal from the world by a son, wearing special clothes and restricting one's enjoyments, appeasing the spirits of one's deceased ancestor. A monk too is like this in the search for Realization, appeasing his spirit. After that period of mourning, one takes off one's mourning clothes and returns to daily life. After Realization, one returns to the world too. One is back in the world, yet in a state of freedom, having calmed the spirits within, one has taken off the shackles and sackcloth.
Of course, one should not (in China) get literally "stumbling drunk" and dance & joyously sing during a period of mourning or as a monk in training, or fall down intoxicated even after if a Buddhist priest (although, yes, Japanese Buddhist priests do tend to drink a bit in hopeful moderation, as Rev. Wick points out). The reference to that probably does not mean literal drunkenness, but spiritually drunk and forgetting of the self. Yamada Roshi says ...
One has shed all entanglements and is in a state of complete freedom, naked of all trappings ...
... A tipsy drunk totters along and even loses his hat somewhere as he sings a little off-key. He is perfectly at peace, without a care in the world. This drunken person is tipsy in a spiritual sense. It wouldn’t be very commendable to be really drunk and not care a whit about convention.
http://www.sanbo-zen.org/shoyoroku_73.pdf
... A tipsy drunk totters along and even loses his hat somewhere as he sings a little off-key. He is perfectly at peace, without a care in the world. This drunken person is tipsy in a spiritual sense. It wouldn’t be very commendable to be really drunk and not care a whit about convention.
http://www.sanbo-zen.org/shoyoroku_73.pdf
The following sentences are filled with references to the interpenetration of both ways of knowing this life ... empty of anything to sweep, yet dusts to sweep, full light yet partial moons. Traditionally, Zen Masters of old used the hexagrams of the I-Ching and Yin-Yang, or the different phases of the moon, to represent the different phases of interpenetrating absolute-relative(see below).
One translation closes the poem (again, speaking of the spiritual, not spirits in a bottle) ...
Freshly fulfilling filial piety, one encounters spring.
Walking drunk with crazy songs, losing the hat along the way,
With messy hair, staggering to and fro: who cares what?
A perfect drunkard in great peace, without any problems at all.
Walking drunk with crazy songs, losing the hat along the way,
With messy hair, staggering to and fro: who cares what?
A perfect drunkard in great peace, without any problems at all.
Anyway. I wonder why Wick Roshi left all that alone this time?
Gassho, J
SatToday
Comment