No Merit

The great way of the buddhas is profound, wondrous, inconceivable; how could its practice be easy? Have you not seen how the ancients gave up their bodies and lives, abandoned their countries, cities, and families, looking upon them as like shards of tile? After that they passed eons living alone in the mountains and forests, bodies and minds like dead trees; only then did they unite with the way. Then they could use mountains and rivers for words, raise the wind and rain for a tongue, and explain the great void. . . . Shobogenzo

The zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. . . . It is the manifestation of ultimate reality. . . . Once its heart is grasped, you are like the dragon when he gains the water, like the tiger when he enters the mountain. Forms and substance are like the dew on the grass, destiny like the dart of lightning—emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. Why leave behind the seat that exists in your own home and go aimlessly off to the dusty realms of other lands? . . . Do not be suspicious of the true dragon. Devote your energies to a way that directly indicates the absolute [and] gain accord with the enlightenment of the buddhas. A Universal Recommendation for Zazen —EIHEI DOGEN

“In a statement attributed to the First Chinese Patriarch, Bodhidharma, an old monk from India who is loosely associated with the birth of Zen, the new teaching was described as “a special transmission outside the scriptures, not founded upon words or letters. By pointing directly to man’s own mind, it lets him see into his own true nature and thus attain Buddhahood.” The illustrious teacher from India was soon summoned to an audience with the Emperor Wu, a devout Buddhist and teacher of the sutras who built temples and supported monks, and was therefore honored as the “Buddha-Mind Emperor.” (One meaning of the Chinese character wu signifies “absolute being”; another denotes “awakening” or enlightenment.) Relating all he had studied and accomplished, Wu asked modestly, “What merit will there be?”

Bodhidharma said, “No merit.” In answering in this abrupt sharp way, the old Indian teacher points directly at the absolute, in which there is no merit to be given, and neither giver nor receiver. From the relative point of view, there is no merit either, so long as Wu clings to the concept of merit: true merit derives from seeing into one’s own true nature or Buddha-nature, manifesting one’s own free meritless nature, moment after moment, like a fish or bird—just Wu, just bird.

Doubtless taken aback, the Emperor demands, “If all that has no merit, then what is the primary meaning of the holy truth?” Presumably the Emperor refers to the non-duality of universal and everyday truth, the fundamental identity of relative and absolute that underlies Mahayana Buddhist doctrine. And perhaps he is challenging the old villain to present the essence of this teaching. But Bodhidharma, correctly interpreting this sutra teacher’s degree of spiritual attainment, recognizes a purely doctrinal question inviting exposition on the Dharma, and so, once more, he points directly at the realm of the Absolute or Universal.

“No holiness,” says he. “Vast emptiness.” This ringing answer instantly established the spare uncompromising tone of the Zen teachings. It also carried great mystery and power, for this “emptiness” was neither absence nor a void. Its Chinese character was ku, which also signifies the clear blue firmament, without north or south, future or past, without boundaries or dimension. Like the empty mirror on which all things pass, leaving no trace, this ku contains all forms and all phenomena, being a symbol of the universal essence. Thus this emptiness is also fullness, containing all forms and phenomena above and below Heaven, filling the entire universe. In this universal or absolute reality, there is no holiness (nor any nonholiness), only the immediacy of sky as-it-is in this present moment, with or without clouds or balloons, kites or fireworks, birds or snow or wind.

Bodhidharma is not criticizing holiness. Religion is a precious concept, and concepts are crucial to the relative or “practical” aspect of our life, which is the ground of Zen. (“Rice in a bowl, water in a pail: how do you like these common miracles?”) But when we are mired in the relative world, never lifting our gaze to the mystery, our life is stunted, incomplete; we are filled with yearning for that paradise that is lost when, as young children, we replace with words and ideas and abstractions—such as merit, such as past, present, and future—our direct, spontaneous experience of the thing itself, in the beauty and precision of this present moment. We identify, label, and interpret our surroundings as abstract concepts, quite separate from yet another concept, which is our own separate identity and ego. Even holiness is removed from us, a Heaven up there with a God in it.

One can certainly sympathize with the Buddha-Mind Emperor. Here he is, anticipating homage, only to be confronted with this old wretch saying No merit! to all of his good deeds, his imperial handiwork, saying No holiness! to his big question about holy truth—an outrageous scene, and a tremendous one. To judge from his portraits, Bodhidharma was as vital and ferocious as he was short-spoken, and he was fearless; he might have had those bristling brows plucked one by one. Cowled, round-shouldered, big-headed, bearded, broken-toothed, with prominent and piercing eyes, sometimes said to be blue—one can all but smell his hard-patched robes, stained with ghee butter from India, the wafting reek of cooking smoke and old human leather. One imagines him slouched there scratching and belching, or perhaps demanding, What time do we eat?

And Wu demands to know, Who stands before me? Wu is after all an advanced student of the Buddha Dharma, and perhaps he has glimpsed something. All the same, he is a bit put out. And so this question must mean something like, You say no holiness, yet you present yourself as a holy man from India! Or, If all is emptiness, then who is this terrible old person standing before me? He does not yet see the Oneness of existence, the One Body, that Bodhidharma points to, he is still stuck in the relative world, the delusion of the self as a complete entity, separate from like entities: Who stands before me?! And no doubt he is shaken, reassembling his dignity. Bodhidharma has no wish to expound. He is bringing the Dharma from India to China, and as he is already one hundred and ten years old, time is not on his side. He says simply,

I know not. This answer is the ultimate answer in Zen. It is “not-knowing,” a response that echoes “vast emptiness,” yet goes still deeper to the unnameable source where there is nothing-to-know, where nothing exists outside the doing and being of this present instant without past or future, an instant no more measurable than the flight of a bird from a limb. (Where to begin? Do we measure the relaxing of the feet? The moment when the eye glimpses the hawk, when instinct functions? For in this pure action, this pure moving of the bird, there is no time, no space, but only the free doing-being of this very moment—now!

Unencumbered by concepts—such as emptiness, such as enlightenment—the bird is gone.) To be at one with our element, like that bird—that is the Absolute, that is our enlightened Buddha-nature. The instant we are conscious of that element, we stand apart from our own true nature, our Buddha-nature, we are back in the relative world of time and space, of life and death. This world is real, too, but its reality is partial.

Like emptiness, this not-knowing is very close to us, therefore hard to see. It is the source or essence of our life, and of Zen practice. In zazen, all “knowing” falls away; we simply are. And that is the enlightened state, whether or not the practitioner has had a so-called “enlightenment experience.”

Bodhidharma went north across the Yangtze River to Shorin Temple and spent nine years in zazen, “facing the wall.” When the old monk had gone, Wu’s minister, the venerable Shiko, told the Emperor gently that this old teacher was a manifestation of the great compassionate Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Padmapani in India, Kuan Yin in China, Kwannon or Kannon in Japan) transmitting the Buddha Mind. Wu, dismayed, wished to send after him, but Shiko dissuaded him: how can you seek outside yourself for your own Buddha Nature? How can you send for the Lord Who Is Seen Within?”

~ Peter Matthiessen, Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982
Peter Matthiessen (1927 –2014) was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer and CIA agent. In the 1960s, Mr. Matthiessen experimented with LSD and mescaline and began to practice Zen Buddhism, which became an increasingly important part of his life. He spent several weeks a year at Zen retreats, meditating in cross-legged silence for up to 14 hours a day and eventually led daily meditation sessions at his home. He became a Zen master, and a defender of the environment and the cause of the American Indian. From the start, Mr. Matthiessen struggled against the privilege and pedigree he had been born into. He was educated at the finest preparatory schools and graduated from Yale University, but, at 15, he demanded that his name be removed from the Social Register.

“He’s an amazing person—a very humble person. You know, he had done so much, written so much, had so many awards, and knew so many people. But he was very serious about his Zen studies, as well of course as all his work with particularly the Lakota, but various indigenous groups; with the environment; with the causes of the fisherman. He worked with Cesar Chavez, in union farm issues—very serious and very humble. You never heard him dropping names or resting on his laurels. I love the man. I’ll always love the man…” ~ Bernie Glassman talking about Peter Matthiessen