Case 47 of the Gateless Barrier: "Tosotsu's Three Barriers"
Spring Sesshin 2006
by Shinge Roshi
Tosotsu Etsu Osho set up three barriers for his disciples:
- Groping through the undergrowth, you leave no stone unturned to explore profundity, simply to see into your true nature. Now, I want to ask you, at this moment, where is your true nature?
- If you realize your true nature, you are free from life and death. Tell me, when your eyesight deserts you at the last moment, how can you be free from life and death?
- 3. When you set yourself free from life and death, you must know your ultimate destination. So when the four elements separate, where will you go?
Master Tosotsu's "Three Barriers" is the quintessential koan. It is indeed the One Barrier, This Great Matter, the key question of our lives.
Kanzan Egen Zenji, the founder of Myoshin-ji and Shogen-ji, was once addressed by a monk who said, "I have come to train myself in order to solve the question of life and death." Kanzan drove him away, saying, "At this place there is no such thing as life and death!"
We all want to solve something, get something; we want to fix what we perceive as wrong. Completely enmired in dualistic thinking, we cannot see our true nature.
Kanzan Egan died while talking with his disciple, just standing by a pond in a garden at Myoshin-ji. Just an ordinary moment.
How do we understand this ordinary moment from within the absolute, this absolute within the ordinary moment? How do we enter the Dharma Gate of Non-Duality, as it's put in the Vimalakirti Sutra? To be born and to die in this "no such thing," what is this? Sitting in the midst of pain, fear, anger, we are looking into this, and the spring raindrops are soaking into our hearts despite our "selves." Descartes's famous statement was, "I think, therefore I am." He didn't know he was explaining the root of suffering! I, I, I. This ego-entity clamoring incessantly. Someone told me he was in great pain, and then reminded himself, "You know, in a few minutes, the bell will ring, you'll get up and go to the dining hall, and the pain will be gone." Then, he realized, the pain would be gone, but the suffering would still be there.
You're always lugging around this big bundle of misery you call the self. I might say, "Self? But there's nothing to it! It's like the Emperor's new clothes-there's nothing there! You're bare, there's no sack, no weight-no self!" But you can't let it go. You can't imagine what it would be like, because what's most familiar? Your own suffering. You're comforted by that familiarity, thus you can't be free. Another student told me he found himself getting angry at being reprimanded by various people regarding how he was doing his work, and then said to himself, "They're pushing my buttons." But YOU are pushing your buttons. THEY are only doing their best, struggling with their own sacks, their own bundles of misery. How do you stop pressing your buttons?
W.H. Auden wrote a poem that perfectly expresses this:
We would rather be ruined than changed.
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our delusions die.
When true nature has not been realized, fear-fear of death-underlies everything that is done, and nothing will go well; pain may ebb and flow, but suffering continues, because "we would rather die in our dread/ Than climb the cross of the moment/ And let our delusions die." Yet there's nothing to it! Die on the cushion, and realize life! Shido Bunan's famous expression was, "While alive, be a dead person, thoroughly dead. Then do what you will; all will be well."
Zen teachers have expressed their freedom from life and death in many ways. Takuan, when asked by his students for a death poem, said, no, I have nothing to say. His students said, please, surely, you must have something. So he took up his brush and wrote the character "dream," and passed away. "All composite things are like a dream," the Diamond Sutra tells us in the final verse. And Takuan wrote, in one of his One Hundred Dream Poems:
Right is a dream;
Wrong, too, is a dream.
Remember the round we used to sing as children? "Row row row your boat, gently down the stream; merrily merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream."
When he was dying, Kogetsu Tani Roshi, past abbot of Shogen-ji, said, "My life has been one continual mistake." Wonderful! One continual mistake. We can all relate to that, but usually we don't feel cheerful about it. Why? Because we don't realize that "right is a dream; wrong, too, is a dream." One continual mistake. This morning-I love the Diamond Sutra so much!-This morning during our chanting I reached out to get the next page, and lost a page. Page 18, 19-and we were really going at a fast clip! There was no way I could ever find my way again-gone!-but, I had memorized the last verse, so.
One continual mistake. And we find ourselves together again. Together again. Never fails. We just trust this moment. And if we don't have even that much time, let it go. Zen Master Ikkyu wrote:
Born like a dream
In this dream of a world
How easy in mind I am,
I who will fade away
Like the morning dew.
(Choro, Nyogen Senzaki's name, means Morning Dew.)
One prays for the life of tomorrow
Ephemeral life though it be.
This is the habit of mind
That passed away yesterday.
(Give it up!)
The Original-nature
Means non-birth, non-distinction.
Then know that illusion
Is birth, death, rebirth.
That's what Ikkyu said.
Another teacher's last words were, "I don't want to die!" Coming from his great realization that birth and death are an illusion, he could say with absolute freedom, "I don't want to die!"
And here is Soen Roshi's death poem:
Mustard blossoms!
there is nothing left
to hurl away
Everyone has so many concepts about what it's going to be like-what enlightenment will be like, what true nature is like, what death will be like. All of these must be hurled away. Cast away. True nature is unavoidable! You've been doing your best to run from it, but it won't let you; it won't let you. Sorry!
If you have fully entered this true being that you are, and can testify to it, actualize it, feel completely at home, then this temporary skin bag that is in the process of crumbling away: OK! A new screaming birth: OK! Dying: OK! No fear. No fear whatsoever. Then, life everlasting is not some phrase that you hear and yearn after, but is just plain fact; just Oak Tree! When you set yourself free-when YOU set yourself free-only you can stop pushing your buttons, only you can set yourself free-only you can die into your true life-when you set yourself free, you must know your ultimate destination. So, when the four elements separate and you are no longer inhabiting this temporary arrangement of elements you call life, your current incarnation, where do you go? You must know.
Master Huineng, the Sixth Ancestor, told his monks, "Gather around me. I have decided to leave this world in the eighth month." When they heard this, many of the monks wept. "Why are you crying?" Huineng asked. "Are you worrying that I don't know where I'm going? If I didn't know, I wouldn't be able to leave you this way. What you are really crying about is that you don't know where I am going. If you actually knew, you couldn't possibly cry, because true nature is without birth or death, without going or coming."
And Dogen Zenji gave us the most beautiful instruction. He was a great master of giving instructions. He gave instructions for everything: how to use the washroom, which foot to use upon leaving the zendo, how to fold one's sleeping quilt, and here, how to pass this one great barrier of Master Tosetsu-we say three barriers, but they are ONE. Listen to this:
"Free body-mind and abandon it. Throw yourself into the house of the Buddha. Let him initiate you and simply follow him effortlessly without anxiety. Then you can be free from samsara and become a Buddha. Can anyone resist doing so?"
Where is the house of the Buddha? This very place! Let him initiate you! Then you will be free from samsara, free from the endless round of birth and death, and you will be a Buddha. No striving. No pushing. No seeking far away. Just sitting, letting it be done. In Christianity, there is that wonderful saying: "Thy will be done." This is not to say that there is some buddha out there, some god up there-"thy will be done" means, stop trying to figure it out, stop being anxious about it, and realize, it is all being done, it's all being done right here, showing us the Way. Master Rinzai put it this way: buji. Nothing to do. It's already done. I said at the beginning of sesshin, get out of the way, just get out of the way. What happens when you get out of the way? Thy will be done! You find your own Way, you find that you are the Way! The Way is revealed, straight ahead in front of you, in all of its marvelous meanders, in your own straight-ahead mind as it goes this way, that way, up and down.
Master Rinzai said, "Today's Dharma assembly is for the sake of this Great Matter." Today's Dharma assembly, yesterday's Dharma assembly, tomorrow's Dharma assembly-This very moment's Dharma assembly. And then he asked, "Does anyone else have a question? If so, ask it right away. But the moment you open your mouth, you are already way off. Why is this so? Don't you know Shakyamuni Buddha said, 'Dharma is apart from words and letters'?" And we read together in the Diamond Sutra,
"Words cannot explain the real nature of the universe." Rinzai continued, "But because your faith is insufficient, you struggle today." Faith in this house of the Buddha, in which you are always sitting-never anywhere else. Trust, trust, trust.
And you may recall how it was for Master Rinzai when he was a young monk staying at Master Obaku's place; three years went by, and not one time did he go to dokusan. Not once. Finally the head monk went to him and said, "Why don't you go see Master Obaku, and ask him something?" "I don't know what to ask," the young monk said. So sincere was his practice, so simple and direct, just sitting, just working, just doing whatever was asked of him, and more. The head monk said, "Ask him 'what is the quintessence of Buddha-Dharma?'"
Well, as most of you know, this did not go well. He went, he asked, he got struck. He went again, he asked, and again Master Obaku hit him. Three times he went. "What is�"- bam, bam, bam! Finally he went back to the head monk and said, "I was lucky to receive your compassionate guidance." This is what is meant by sincere. Not, "Why did you tell me to ask that question! Why did you make me go see him! He just hit me!" That is the usual way we think. "He pushed my buttons!" No! No, no, no, no, no! He humbly returned to the head monk. This is what we must be saturated with, this moment of Rinzai's life. We must understand this; it is OUR life. Humbly he said, "I was lucky to receive your compassionate guidance. You forced me to ask the question three times, and three times I was hit. I deplore deeply that my accumulated karmic impediments are preventing me from getting the profound meaning of Osho's intention. I have decided to leave."
This is so important. To see, to be able to see and say that somehow my karmic impediments prevent me from getting it. Again, the Diamond Sutra tells us the same thing-if you are downtrodden, by virtue of your present misfortune, your karma will be purified, and you will realize supreme enlightenment. We think, oh, impediments. I have these terrible impediments, poor me, therefore I can't get it. No, it's because of these impediments that you are here, in this zendo, in this purification! You are so fortunate that you are here! Not just wandering in the undergrowth, but here! Humbly and sincerely here, purifying and purifying.
Then the head monk advised Rinzai to say goodby to Obaku before leaving. But first the head monk went to Obaku and said, "That young monk who has been questioning you is a vessel of Dharma. When he comes to take his leave, kindly give him some advice. I am positive that in the future, with much training, he will become like a great tree, providing cool shade for the people of the world." Such a discerning head monk! So Rinzai went to see Obaku, who told him to go to Daigu's place.
Upon his arrival, Daigu asked, "Where are you from?" Sneaky Zen question. "Obaku's place," Rinzai replied. "What did Obaku say to you?" Rinzai said, "I asked three times, 'What is the quintessence of Buddha-Dharma,' and three times I was hit. I don't know whether or not I'm at fault." Daigu said, "Obaku is indeed such a grandma. He completely exhausted himself for your sake. Yet you come here saying, 'I don't know whether or not I'm at fault!'" Upon hearing these words, Rinzai was greatly awakened, and said, "Aha! Obaku's Buddha-Dharma is nothing special!" Daigu seized Rinzai, crying, "You little bed-wetting devil! A moment ago you said, 'I don't know whether or not I'm at fault.' Now you say, 'Obaku's Buddha-Dharma is nothing special!' What did you see? Speak! Speak!" Rinzai punched Daigu in the ribs three times. Daigu pushed him away, saying, "Your teacher is Obaku. It has nothing to do with me."
Mumon's Comment on "Tosotsu's Three Barriers": "If you can put turning words to these three questions, you are the master wherever you may stand, and command Zen whatever circumstances you may be in." If you can see into your own nature; if you die while alive, you will live everlastingly! Then no matter what comes, OK! Bam, bam, bam! Or, "darling!" or, whatever is appropriate. Then, wherever you may stand, you are the master of your life. All beings and you, in any event, in any place, One master. No matter what the circumstances-and this is so important-indeed, you come to sesshin to learn this, over and over and over again-you are the master. The circumstances themselves are Buddha-nature revealing right here, right now. Or, as Sosan Zenji put it, the great Way is not difficult, just don't get hung up on preferences. Circumstances are just as they are. Avatar of Buddha, OK! Rajah of Kalinga, OK! Wondrous birdsong, the blossoms of this miraculous spring, OK! Preferring nothing, clinging to nothing, searching for nothing-then no problem. When last breath comes, filled with agony, AAARGH! OK! When last breath comes, standing by the pond talking to a student, OK! "If otherwise"-if you feel that there is some obstacle in your way-Mumon continues,
"Listen!" He gives us some advice: "Gulping down your meal will fill you easily, but chewing it well can sustain you." This chewing-this zazen, sitting long and getting tired, chewing it well-don't be superficial, don't take any of my words or anyone else's words that I have read for it. Find out for yourself, chew it up and spit it out! Then you will be sustained, you will be nourished.
Mumon's Verse:
This moment's thought sees through eternal time;
Eternal time is just this moment.
If you see through this moment's thought,
You see through the one who sees through this moment.
This one moment, when we are completely in it-and everyone here has had some taste, right?-everybody says yes, oh, good! When we are in this moment, completely this moment, there is no such thing as past mind, present mind, future mind-there is just one everlasting spring. Eternal time, everlasting time is just this (Bam!), this. "If you see through this moment's thought"-just Ah! Just this!-"you see through the one who sees through this moment." Completely seen through. Not a trace. Self-nature is no-nature. Therefore, grass is green. Mountain is mountain, river is river, oak tree is oak tree! Just this. So I will leave you with Dogen's famous reply when asked, after he returned from China, "What did you get?" "Empty-handed, I have returned home." Seen through, the one who sees through this moment. "Empty-handed, I have returned home." Holding onto nothing whatsoever. This is sesshin: the feeling of returning home. Sesshin after sesshin, returning home, returning home. "Empty-handed, I have returned home. I only know that the eyes are horizontal; the nose is vertical." Grass grows by itself. Oak tree in the garden.
*Quotations are from Eido Shimano Roshi's translations of "Life-Death" from the Shobogenzo by Eihei Dogen and The Book of Rinzai: The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Rinzai.
