Fall Ango Week 11: The teacher just kept fanning

wood inlay expression of Genjo Koan by Burt Quinn, of the Stone Creek Zen Center sangha

Dear Fall Ango Sangha,

Here’s this week’s, our penultimate, section:

Zen master Baoche of Mount Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, “Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why, then do you fan yourself?” “Although you understand that the nature of wind is permanent;” Baoche replied, “you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere.” “What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?” asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply. The actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind.

Dogen-zenji, author of the Genjo Koan and founder of the Soto Zen school of Buddhism in Japan, was born in the year 1200. Although he lived long ago, the Buddhism he encountered when he ordained as a young adolescent was already centuries old. It had been through many transfigurations, beginning in India, and then as it moved and was shaped by cultures in China and Korea, finally making its way to Japan and Japanese culture, where it was impacted and shaped as well. The Buddhism Dogen-zenji trained in as a young monk was a Mahayana influenced Tendai school, where a prominent teaching held that all beings have Buddha nature. In other words, all beings have the capacity to become Buddhas, just by virtue of their existence.

Many things indicate that Dogen was a serious student, he studied and practiced intensely. From this, even while still in his teens, he germinated a gnawing question which was, according to Shohaku Okumura, “If all phenomena are themselves ultimate reality and all living beings are themselves Buddha nature, why do we have to study and practice? Why do we have to make such an effort to improve ourselves and our world?”* In Dogen’s younger years, it seems he was not able to find a teacher that offered a satisfying answer to this. So much so that in his young adulthood, this question became the basis on which he ended up risking a journey across the sea from Japan to China to find a teacher who could help him understand.

Eventually he found Tiantong Rujing, whose reply impacted and changed Dogen. According to Okumura, “Rujing taught that we cannot see reality and practice from only the absolute perspective. Saying there is no need to practice because everything is already part of enlightenment is to deny the relative reality of cause and effect. Since human beings have the ability to express both delusion and enlightenment, we must practice in order to manifest true awakening, or Buddha nature. This reply from Rujing, which contains the foundational teaching that practice and enlightenment are one, became the basis of Dōgen’s own teachings when he returned to Japan..”*

Here Rujing is opening a complexity, and helping Dogen see beyond a one-sided view of human nature. Yes, all beings have the possibility for awakening, and freedom is available in every moment. Human beings are all also always full of the possibility for delusion, many seeds of ignorance, greed, hatred and confusion have also been handed down and sewn into all of us. And so we need to practice and study and make efforts so that the illumination of Buddha Nature can come through in our activities in the world, and not be overridden or obscured by the heaping mounds of conditioning that lean in the direction of delusion.

This question: If all beings have Buddha nature inherently, why do we need to practice and make efforts, is essentially the question the monk in this story at the end of Genjo Koan is asking. Here, Buddha Nature is the wind, and “permanent” (a confusing word/ translation to use given the reality of impermanence) refers to how Buddha Nature is ever-present. What he wonders about is the effort, the fanning, the moving around of the wind that Bao Che is doing. Why not just lie down on the ground and be Buddha Nature, no effort required.

The next thing that happens is quite nice, Bao Che doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t debate, or offer a theory, or unravel the metaphor (or even yell or jump up and smack the student!), he just keeps fanning. We can guess that Bao Che has been “fanning” for a long while at this point in his life. He was a vigorous student and teacher himself. There are stories of him, as well, traveling around and questioning teachers, really wanting to understand. And we can assume from the clarity of his teaching here that he has come to understand- you have to make effort, you have to DO something, you have to fan for the wind of Buddha Nature to cool the fires of suffering in this world. Buddha nature may be inherent, but it doesn’t take shape in the world without regular human beings, diligently trying their best, animating it into activity. Buddha Nature and the whole of Buddha Dharma only come into this world by way of human beings making effort to take them up, care for them, grapple with them, share them, and root the activities of our lives in them.

And as we make these efforts, as we fan, then we begin to understand the WHY and the HOW of the efforts. There really is no other way around. It’s in the doing and the being of them that The actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission comes about.

We would like to offer that the fundamental training in this “fanning” or manifesting Buddha Nature in the world is what is happening/ what we’re doing in zazen. Each time we’re taking up the practice of zazen, we are bringing an expression of practice-enlightenment into the world. It’s important to note that zazen is not limited to seated meditation, but meditation is where we train the body-mind in manifesting Buddha nature. We can recall from earlier in Genjo Koan as well, that this realization is not something we can grasp or explain, “Do not suppose what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness.” But it is still something we can take up, make effort in and Do. In fact, we can receive another aspect of Bao Che’s teaching and allow our efforts toward liberation to happen with the body, through our activity, and not try to locate it with words or in ideas.

Bao Che’s teaching, we can now consider retroactively, encompasses the whole of Genjo Koan, and all the metaphors, images and teachings therein, summed up as a simple action- fanning to make the wind, the action of one hand impacting the whole world.

So now, at the end of this exploration, how is this fanning for you?

With much gratitude for your practice-engagement,

Sarah and Charlie

Zen Priests, Dharma Teachers

*from Realizing Genjokoan by Shohaku Okumura