No Rank

[RichardH]

Hi. I am curious how other sangha members see the idea of "a person of no rank". It is a very beautiful teaching that has been on my mind lately. Tutoring people in painting at a local school it is surprising how many students equate those words ( we talk about the idea) with low rank. So many people feel that they could never bloom creatively, that there are special people who are entitled to play and explore and realize something "authentic" , but that such things are "over there" and not "here". It isn't just a matter of temperment, it is a matter of conditioning. In creative terms she/he may not realize that her/his eye is already the best eye . We always hear about big egos and inflated self images, but I think it is much more common for people to diminish themselves and call it a virtue. In the same way, in " spiritual" matters it is so common to hear that there are special people out there who know about these things, or that no one does, or that maybe one day science will figure out the cosmos. Yet it is every person's birthright to realize the beautiful universal truths inherent in our own bones and in every gesture we make. We may need guidance and encouragement but "it" is not far away, and never belongs to someone else, or to an "official" institution.

Sorry to go on here but this has really jumped out lately. The best I can see is that a person of no rank can fetch water or take charge when needed, is not small or large, can feel comfortable in the company of rich or poor , socially powerful or not powerful. A person of no rank can assume the role of any rank, while being bound to none. And in the context of learning art, a person of no rank is willing to try and "fail" , and allows things to bloom according to their own light. Everyone booms differently but when that boom is sovereign it always shines.

Just had to get it out..


Gassho
Daizan

Sat today

Please take this post as a personal expression.

[Jishin]

Hi Daizan,

A person of no rank has achieved the highest rank of them all.

Gassho, Jishin, ST

[Shinzan]

Daizan, your words resonate for me. Allowing oneself to be wholly oneself in every situation, whether that is family life or facing a blank canvas, is about being present. Present to what's alive in oneself. And present to what's alive in the other person or outer environment. Setting aside preconceptions, old reactivity, misperceptions, judgments. Just here-now-here-now. Rank is irrelevant. Just being fully the tender petal flowering in whatever rocky crevice of this marvelous universe that shelters us. Letting that basic goodness and creativity flow thru one in our most sincere way.

Just my 2 cents, as well.
With a bow. _/st\_ Shinzan

[Mp]

Thank you Daizan,

I have heard a saying before ... "I am just a bug! In the grand scheme of things (universal) I am insignificant, yet a vital part of this world as a whole."

We are who we are and each one of use valuable - regardless of rank. =)

Gassho
Shingen

#sattoday

[Byrne]

Daizan,

I have also found that when it comes to being creative most people totally undermine themselves. We do not get to pick our talents, but all creative expressions come from ordinary people with all manners of advantages and disadvantages. The more open we are to our ordinary abilities, whatever they may be, the greater our capacity to make extraordinary statements.

Gassho

Sat Today

[Rich]

Daizan, your words resonate for me. Allowing oneself to be wholly oneself in every situation, whether that is family life or facing a blank canvas, is about being present. Present to what's alive in oneself. And present to what's alive in the other person or outer environment. Setting aside preconceptions, old reactivity, misperceptions, judgments. Just here-now-here-now. Rank is irrelevant. Just being fully the tender petal flowering in whatever rocky crevice of this marvelous universe that shelters us. Letting that basic goodness and creativity flow thru one in our most sincere way.

Just my 2 cents, as well.
With a bow. _/st\_ Shinzan

What Shinzan said. Creativity flows out of your presence. It's like the whole expressing itself through you.
And this is available to everyone so no rank. The Chinese and Japanese expanded Zen into many creative arts and sports.

SAT today

[Risho]

Thank you Daizan for this. I haven't thought about this consciously for a long time. Thank you Jishin, Shinzan, Shingen, Byrne and Rich. I don't say it enough but your posts always inform my practice.

I think this is such freeing view: from one point it's a good ego check; when I'm puffed up and think I'm this or that or I get worried I can't do something but feel I should given my "rank" or status, dropping that and remembering those are all imaginings is very freeing. At the same time, like you stated Daizan, dropping thoughts of being a low rank, not good enough, is also very liberating.

But I have a lot of bad habits personally; I see those thoughts of going from puffed up to not good enough over and over. So I have to always come back and remember there is no rank. Thank you again for bringing this up; it's very helpful.

Gassho,

Risho
-sattoday

[Kyonin]

Hi Daizan,

Once upon a time I wanted to be a comic book artist. I used to draw pretty nice and the dream was there.

Until I had an art teacher that hated everything I did. He criticized my perspective, anatomy, style... even how I handled a pencil or brush. I was young, so I ended hating art class and kept drawing mostly for myself.

I thought I didn't have the rank to be at Marvel or DC and forgot that dream and focused more on the written word.

I had no rank but for a lot of reasons I gave myself the rank of Capt. Incapable.

Now looking back, all I can say is that having no rank, no place to go and no dream to hold on to would've given me a better experience.

But on the other hand I wouldn't be here

So all is good and part of the same.

Gassho,

Kyonin
#SatToday

[Juki]

I had no rank but for a lot of reasons I gave myself the rank of Capt. Incapable.

It's okay if you still want to think of yourself as Captain Incapable, Kyonin. Try to be incapable of judgment, incapable of criticism, incapable of greed, hatred and delusion. Because you are capable of the opposites of all of those things.

Gassho,
Juki

Sat today

[Yugen]

No Rank

Thank you to all in this thread. I'm grateful for your company and counsel tonight.

Deep bows
Yugen


sat2day

[Jundo]

Lovely post, Daizan.

I will note that the "person of no rank" was a saying by Zen Masters of old in the societies of traditional China and Japan in which everyone had a "rank", and a very rigid one. Lords and Peasants, Soldiers and Merchants. Even the priests in the Zen monastery were ranked high and low, from Master to Novice. Most of the lay people that a Zen Master might be speaking to would be ruling officials of very high rank. Perhaps the most famous use of the phrase is by Master Linji [Master Rinzai], and may not have been such a confidence builder to the poor ego of the pushee monk ...

Rinzai instructed his assembly and said, “There is one true person of no rank, always coming out and going in through the gates of your face. Beginners who have not yet witnessed that, look! look!”

Then a monk came out and asked, “What is the one true person of no rank?” Rinzai descended from the rostrum and grabbed him. The monk hesitated. Rinzai pushed him away and said, “The true person of no rank – what a shit-stick you are!”

Probably, in the hands of such Zen Masters (Uchiyama Roshi also talks about this nature of Self in our readings), they are referring to the "no rank" which drops "self/other, this vs. that, inside/outside, up and down, left and right, good and bad, beautiful vs. ugly etc. etc." 'Tis the Ultimate beyond division, name, classification, comparison. Thus, they pointlessly point to this "no rank" which comes in and out of your senses, because your senses and brain then impose all the divisions and classifications of "me-ness" including "self vs. others, up and down, beautiful and ugly and all the rest."

It is pointing to something much bigger ... boundless, in fact ... beyond the question of whether our little day to day ego feels good about itself or not. Thus Is Buddha! High, beyond small human judgments of high or low. So, the focus is not really the lack of confidence of our little self, but to get past the little self completely. Then, one finds a Big C Confidence in all Reality which transcends and is right at the heart of all little "confidence or no confidence, gain or lack, win or lose."

However, I do think our society faces a disease of people with too big egos and confidence in their abilities (maybe it is all the lawyers I know! ) and also people too weak and fragile in ego. I agree that balance is important here. I have been doing some reading on how recent generations of American middle class kids are "over-confident" in their abilities, mostly because they have been getting prizes and praise for everything they do since they were kids ... and they are a little shocked when they don't get that in the workplace as much (best to praise their efforts and "stick-to-it-ness" if one is to praise anything).

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/29/are-kids-getting-too-much-praise/

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-gender-ourselves/201208/the-key-raising-confident-kids-stop-complimenting-them

Training and effort must be combined with a positive attitude about oneself, but at the same time we must stay very very humble and not become over-confident. A fine, wise balance. I like to think that folks like the Buddha and Dogen and Linji were very confident about their projects to teach and maintain a Sangha, but also humble, not over-confident, accepting the ups and downs while never quitting.

And it is also vital to know this "person of no rank" beyond all compare ... no up no down, no better no worse, no me or you, beautiful or ugly, no eye or hand ... who is in your every glance of eye and gesture of hand, and fills this world of up and down, better or worse, me and you, beautiful and ugly. The "person of rank" and the "person of no rank" are not two!

Dogen was actually not such a fan of Linji's "person of no rank" (if it is just meant as some kind of blank slate) unless we also recall the "person of rank" who must bring this life to life each day through our thoughts and actions ... He wrote ...

Linji's total power to say something is just "the true person without rank," but he still has not said, "the true person with rank." He has not realized what remains to be studied, what remains to be said; we can say he has not reached the ground of penetration.

alternative translation:

“The strongest way that [Linji] phrased it was merely as ‘a real person who is beyond rank’; he still had not phrased it as ‘a real person who has a rank’. He had not yet displayed any other ways of exploring this through his training or any other ways of putting it. Thus, we must say that he had not yet reached the field of the Ultimate.”

Maybe what Dogen means [Uchiyama says much the same in this week's readings] is that to just realize the "no me/other, no up/down, no beautiful/ugly" of no rank is not enough if we do not bring it alive through our words, thoughts and acts in this world of "me/other, up/down", bringing a little beauty right here.

Something like that.

Gassho, J

SatToday

[Byrne]

Thank you Jundo.

Gassho

Sat Today

[RichardH]

Thank you Jundo.

Dogen was actually not such a fan of Linji's "person of no rank" (if it is just meant as some kind of blank slate) unless we also recall the "person of rank" who must bring this life to life each day through our thoughts and actions ... He wrote ...

Linji's total power to say something is just "the true person without rank," but he still has not said, "the true person with rank." He has not realized what remains to be studied, what remains to be said; we can say he has not reached the ground of penetration.

alternative translation:

“The strongest way that [Linji] phrased it was merely as ‘a real person who is beyond rank’; he still had not phrased it as ‘a real person who has a rank’. He had not yet displayed any other ways of exploring this through his training or any other ways of putting it. Thus, we must say that he had not yet reached the field of the Ultimate.”

Maybe what Dogen means [Uchiyama says much the same in this week's readings] is that to just realize the "no me/other, up/down, beautiful/ugly" of no rank is not enough if we do not bring it alive through our words, thoughts and acts in this world of "me/other, up/down", bringing a little beauty right here.

Is there any word on what the Rinsai folks response is to this?

Gassho
Daizan

sat today

[Byrne]

Kyonin,

Comics are easy. You can do it.

In the back of your mind set out to do a three panel comic of something. Anything. The more it means something to you personally the better. One day you'll be walking around doing the things you normally do and 3 panels with a beginning, middle, and end about SOMETHING will come to you. Then flesh it out to the best of your abilities. Keep hacking away and editing it until the idea comes across. If you enjoyed yourself do another. It can go as shallow or deep as you like. You don't need to worry about getting hired by Marvel or DC. My buddy in Macon GA has been working in that world for 30 years. He's done some very successful comics but those cats go through the RINGER in that industry. Drawing for that is stressful. Drawing for yourself and possibley others to enjoy is a joy.

Gassho

Sat Today

[Jundo]

Thank you Jundo.





Is there any word on what the Rinsai folks response is to this?

Gassho
Daizan

sat today

Master Rinzai's PR guy did have a press release, but I can't find it.

Gassho, J

SatToday