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Painting by 高爾泰 Gao Ertai & 蒲小雨 Pu Xiaoyu
壽州道樹 / 寿州道树 Shouzhou Daoshu (n.d.)
How Tao-Shu Coped With a Monster
Chapter XIV/9. In: The Golden Age of Zen
by John C. H. Wu
The National War College in co-operation with The Committee on the Compilation of the Chinese Library, Taipei, 1967, pp. 252-253.
道樹 / 道树 Tao-shu, a disciple of Shen-hsiu [玉泉神秀 Yuquan Shenxiu, 606?-706], was living on a mountain with a few pupils. There frequently appeared to him a strange man, simple in clothes but wild and boastful in speech. He could take on the appearance of a Buddha, a Bodhisattva or an Arhat or whatever he had a fancy to. Tao-shu's pupils were all amazed; they could not make out who that wizard was and what he was after. For ten years his apparitions continued. But one day he vanished away, never to return.
Tao-shu said to his pupils, “The wizard is capable of all kinds of tricks in order to bedevil the minds of men. My own way of coping with them is by refraining from seeing and hearing them. His tricks, however multifarious, must come to an end some day, but there is no end to my non-seeing and non-hearing!”
As another master has put it, “What is inexpressible is inexhaustible in its use.”
Chan Master Shouzhou Daoshu
景德傳燈錄 Jingde chuandeng lu
壽州道樹禪師 T.51, no.2076, 232b25 219 162 57
Daoyuan. Records of the Transmission of the Lamp: Volume 2 (Books 4-9), The Early Masters, Book 4.64
Translated by Randolph S. Whitfield
Chan master Daoshu (734-825 CE) of Shou province (Anwei) was a native of Tang province (in Henan) whose family name was Wen. As a young man he researched the classics but on coming to his fiftieth year he met a senior Buddhist monk, through whose persuasion he vowed to leave the home life. Reverently he asked Master Huiwen of the local temple on Mingyue Mountain to be his teacher. The master was embarrassed at being so old but still went in search of the Dharma, thoroughly and determinedly visiting those places he hadn’t been to before. Later he returned to Dongluo (Luoyang, the western capital of the Tang dynasty) and there came across Chan master Shenxiu, under whose words he gained the knowledge of the profound meaning. Eventually he became a vessel of the Dharma and chose the Three Peaks Mountains in Shou Province to live – there he built himself a hut and there he stayed.
He would often go about as a country bumpkin, wearing simple clothes, laughing and talking strangely, would also conjure up apparitions of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, Arhats and various celestial sages, or else bring to manifestation spiritual auras or voices. The master’s followers saw these things but none could fathom it. Thus ten years passed, after which it became quieter – no more apparitions. The master told his assembly, ‘This bumpkin has cultivated much ingenuity in deluding people and only wasted an old monk’s not seeing and not hearing. His ingenuity was poor, whilst his not seeing and not hearing is without limit.’
In the first year of the Baoli reign period (825 CE) the master became ill and died at the age of ninety-two. In January of the following year a stūpa was erected.
No Change the Best Way for Changes
http://en.lingyinsi.org/list_288.html
Zen Master Daoshu built a Buddhist monastery next to a Taoist temple. The Taoists could not tolerate its existence and conjured evil spirits to frighten away the Buddhist monks. The strong wind, heavy rain and scaring lightening did frighten lots of young Buddhist novices away, but none of them worked on Zen Master Daoshu, who remained in the monastery for over ten years. In the end, the magic of the Taoists was exhausted but Zen Master Daoshu was still there. The Taoists had no choice but to move.
Someone asked Zen Master Daoshu afterwards: “Those Taoists had strong magic, so how could you beat them?
The Zen master answered: “I had no advantage over them. I think for my victory, the only answer is ‘no'.”
“How could “no” beat them?”
Zen Master Daoshu said: “Magic, that's what they were having. ‘Having' means having limits, having ends, having volumes and having boundaries. I had no magic. “No” means no limit, no end, no volume and no boundary. The relation between “having” and “no” implies that no change is the best way for changes. In that case, no change could definitely beat the changes.
Xing'en concluded that the Taoists had magic, so they would have annoyance and would want to use what they had to realize their goals by all means. But they didn't know that “having” was the source of annoyance. They made use of what they had, but gained nothing in return. This was why they had annoyance, anger, as well as feelings of frustration and failure. As a result, they failed. While the Zen master had no distractions in his mind. No matter how the world was changed by crashes or earthquakes, he did not change anything. This was the real Buddha's warrior. So living in the world, you should have a broad mind but no conspiracy so that you can put down all the matters as you like. No pleasure when making progress, no sorrow when stepping back, no worries, then prajna, the highest wisdom, will appear.
Tao-shu and the Trickster
In: Opening a Mountain: Koans of the Zen Masters
by Steven Heine
Oxford University Press, 2004
http://www.dmmserver.com/DialABook/978/019/517/9780195174342.html
Main Case
Master Tao-shu, in seeking the Dharma, decided to go on a pilgrimage to visit places he had never seen. After studying at various sites he returned to Northern school patriarch Shen-hsiu, who enlightened him with a single word. Tao-shu understood the subtle meaning of Shen-hsiu's teaching, and in later years he became a good vessel for the Dharma. Using divination to find a dwelling place, he built a humble hermitage at the Three Peaks of the Shou State to continue his practice in solitude. He attracted a following of young disciples.
There lived on the mountain a strange, mischievous spirit, who frequently appeared as a beggar talking and laughing, and at other times manifested in the figure of a bodhisattva or a hermit. Sometimes, the spirit produced radiant lights or spoke in strange voices and echoes. Although the young monks saw and heard them, none of them were able to fathom what these phenomena really were. After ten years of tricks, the spirit vanished once and for all, and no more shadows, figures, or voices ever appeared.
Master Tao-shu told the assembly, "That trickster deceived many people with his pranks. There was only one weapon against his antics—the ‘way of non-seeing and non-hearing.' The talent of playing tricks is limited and eventually exhausted. But the capability of non-seeing and non-hearing is limitless and inexhaustible."
DiscussionAlso cited from CCL vol. 4 (Taisho 51:232b), this koan highlights the rhetoric of emptiness in an encounter between a master and the spirit of the mountain that has a menacing, persistent presence. Tao-shu begins his path as a pilgrim who is enlightened by a "single word" from the main patriarch of the Northern school, Shen-hsiu. Like Yüan-kuei in case 1, he continues his journey by using divination to discover an ideal site for reclusion in the deep mountains. Yet Tao-shu's solitary practice in a "humble hermitage" attracts a following of young monks who are disturbed by the tricks of the spirit and turn to their teacher for solace, so that this encounter becomes a test of his own powers.
In contrast to case 1, in which the spirit is lured to appear in human form by the presence of an accomplished meditator and quickly repents and converts, this entity manifests as a trickster for many years. It appears by either shapeshifting into the form of a beggar, hermit, or bodhisattva—which is also a power that Buddhist deities utilize for compassionate pedagogical purposes—or taking on a quasi-physical appearance as a radiance or a sound. In any case, the spirit is illusory and deceptive. But, in a way that is very similar to the previous case, Tao-shu performs an exorcism that eliminates the mischievous appearance of the spirit through the power of his contemplation and rhetoric of nonduality. The master overcomes the spirit by preaching a message of "non-seeing and non-hearing." Like the notion of the unborn, this refers to a fundamental identity of form and formlessness, illusion and reality, or what is perceptible to the senses and what is beyond the realm of sense perception.
Evoking the way of non-seeing and non-hearing proves effective in vanquishing the spirit. This could imply Tao-shu's ignoring of the spirit by acting as if it were only an illusion that did not deserve or require any more attention. Or it could support a holding fast of his mental energy to offset the force of negativity represented by the spirit's presence. The other monks, who were aware of the trickster's manifestations but never had an understanding of their origins or meaning, are relieved and impressed by the master's capabilities. The master eliminates the troublesome obstacles to the genuine opening of the mountain, so that the landscape is now able to receive the presence of the Dharma.
