Koan Meditation in the Song Dynasty

The following is a JC Cleary translation from an anthology called Impetus to Advance in the Zen Gate, compiled in 1600 by Yunqi Zhuhong.

“Lesson From Zen Teacher Wuzu Fayan When Seeing Off Disciples About to Embark on Their Travels on Foot”

In doing meditation work, you must persist in constant inquiry and always keep your attention focused. Where is power gained? Where is power not gained? Where is power lost? Where is power not lost? There is a certain type who doze off as soon as they get on the meditation cushion. When they wake up, they are full of chaotic thoughts. As soon as they get off the meditation cushion, they are gabbing about this and that. Those who work on the Path like this will never master it even if they wait until Maitreya is born. What is necessary is to boldly apply your spirit: keep your attention on a koan and study it day and night. Keep engaged with it; don’t sit in the bag of unconcern. Don’t sit as if dead on the meditation cushion. With miscellaneous thoughts, the more you struggle against them, the more they come. Just very lightly abandon them. Get up and walk around a bit, then return to the meditation cushion. With both eyes open, close both hands into fists, and keep your spine erect: then put your attention back on the koan as you were doing before. Then you will feel pure and cool. It’s like putting a ladleful of cold water into a pot of boiling water. If you do the work like this, the time is sure to come when you arrive home.

Wuzu here uses language very similar to Yuanwu and Dahui in their letters:

Yuanwu:

Right now, if you have within you the will to proceed toward the Great Cause, you must put all your strength into concentrating your focus on it and making your concentration solid and sure. Forget about eating and sleeping, do not shrink from strenuous efforts, work hard and endure the pain. If you investigate it with your whole being, after a long time you will naturally achieve certainty and enter the Path.

You should spend twenty or thirty years doing dispassionate and tranquil meditation work, sweeping away any conditioned knowledge and interpretive understanding as soon as it arises, and not letting the traces of the sweeping itself remain either. Let go on That Side, abandon your whole body, and go on rigorously correcting yourself until you attain great joyous life. The only fear is that in knowing about this strategy, the very act of knowing will lead to disaster. Only when you proceed like this will it be real and genuine practice.

ZhaoZhou said something similar about working for thirty years:

Just sit there investigating the truth for twenty or thirty years,—if you do not attain understanding, cut off my head.

Here’s Dahui:

Both torpor and excitation were condemned by the former sages. When you're sitting quietly, as soon as you feel the presence of either of these two diseases, just bring up the saying, "A dog has no Buddha-nature." Don't exert effort to push away these two kinds of disease- just be peaceful and still right there. Over a long time, as you become aware of saving power, this is the place where you gain power. Nor do you have to engage in quiet meditation- this itself is meditation.

In the conduct of your daily activities, as you're involved with differentiated objects, when you become aware of saving power, this is where you gain power. Gaining power is the ultimate in saving power. If you use the slightest power to uphold it, this is definitely a false method -it's not Buddhism. Just take the mind, so long-lasting, and bring it together with the saying "A dog has no Buddha-nature." Keep them together till the mind has no place to go - suddenly, it's like awakening from a dream, like a lotus flower opening, like parting the clouds and seeing the moon. When you reach such a moment, naturally you attain unity.

So here we have a recurring theme through three generations of Song Dynasty lineage. Wuzu -> Yuanwu -> Dahui. Focus concentration on a single point. Exert constant effort. Investigate the truth. It will take a long time. It will save power. Eventually the student will break through to enlightenment.

Incidentally Foyan, also a disciple of Wuzu, touches on the same themes of energy efficiency and saving power:

Generally speaking, practical application of Zen requires detachment from thoughts. This method of Zen saves the most energy.

If those who have illness are willing to set it aside, step back and look, they too will naturally understand. This task spares energy to the utmost. The way of the ancients is very economical and most quintessential.

Here’s what he said about koans:

Nowadays people just call these dialogues. This is because of lack of precision in applying effort, failing to understand the expedient devices of the ancients.

You have to have precision in applying effort to these koans. This tracks with Wuzu’s description above.

The Wuzu text seems to be a direct instruction to students. That’s what the Dahui and Yuanwu letters are as well. It seems that in personal interaction with students, all three used this technique of focused concentration to affect realization. These instructions are absent from their works meant for broader audiences, likely because this kind of work is taught one on one, while their lectures and commentaries are tailored for mass consumption. As we have more translations of their more intimate teaching methods it becomes apparent that meditation was a preferred method of the Song dynasty teachers for leading students to having a breakthrough. This became prevalent in both the Caodong and LinChi schools, passed down from Wuzu to Yuanwu, who taught both Hongzhi and Dahui.

What do you think?