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Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: "The flag is moving."
The other said: "The wind is moving."
The sixth patriach happened to be passing by. He told them: "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving."
So I grew up with this book, and my opinions of it are no doubt heavily colored by the fact that it's a part of who I am. (My Dad had, probably still has, a paperback edition that I recall as having a yellow cover and sitting on the shelf next to his bed, and I'd lie there and read it and be amazed. I discovered in my own collection the other year a lovely boxed edition from Charles E. Tuttle. I have no idea where it came from; if it was you who gave it to us, thanks very!)
The book consists of translations of four primary source materials in and around Zen. Some of the words and stories in it have bubbled into the popular culture; but for most of them, you actually have to read it.
Circumstances arose one day which delayed preperation of the dinner of a Soto Zen master, Fukai, and his followers. In haste the cook went to the garden with his curved knife and cut off the tops of green vegetables, chopped them together and made soup, unaware that in his haste he had included a part of a snake in the vegetables.
The followers of Fugai thought they never tasted such good soup. But when the master himself found the snake's head in his bowl, he summoned the cook. "What is this?" he demanded, holding out the head of the snake.
"Oh, thank you, master," replied the cook, taking the morsel and eating it quickly.
"101 Zen Stories" is a bunch of stories (strange or amusing or enlightening or puzzling or occasionally disturbing) about Zen teachers and students and so on; according to the introduction, they "were transcribed into English from a book called the Shaseki-shu (Collection of Stone and Sand), written late in the 13th century by a Japanese Zen teacher Muju (the 'non-dweller') and from anecdotes of Zen monks taken from various books published in Japan around the turn of the present century" (around 1900, that is).
A monk told Joshu, "I have just entered this monastery. I beg you to teach me." Joshu asked, "Have you eaten your rice porridge?" The monk replied, "I have." "Then," said Joshu, "Go and wash your bowl." At that moment the monk was enlightened.
The Mumonkan, the Gateless Gate, is a classic collection of Zen koans from like the thirteenth century. They are in the canonical koan style; a tiny enigmatic story followed by a tiny enigmatic commentary on the story and a tiny enigmatic poem. Together with the 101 stories, these make up in my mind the chatty heart of Zen: not dogma, not elaborate and dubious truth-claims, not commandments or condemnations, just stories. They leave the interpretation of the stories, or the thought that interpretation may be beside the point, entirely to the reader.
Along the riverbank under the trees, I discover footprints!
The third part of the book, short but wonderful, is a version of the "10 Bulls" poem, with modern but extremely apt illustrations. I find the Bulls a deeply correct metaphor for, well, for something or other. Something or other very important.
The fourth part of the book is odd. I enjoy it also, but it doesn't feel as much like part of me (maybe I didn't get to the end very often in my youth), and I wonder about it. It purports to be a dialogue between Devi and Shiva, from an ancient Tantric tradition far predating Buddhism, consisting mainly of 112 sentences of advice from Shiva to the goddess on the nature of the universe and how to enter "life beyond form pervading forms".
It's pretty cool, but in spots it sounds a bit too much like something from a New Age refrigerator magnet. "Feel your substance, bones, flesh, blood, saturated with cosmic essense." But maybe it's just the translation; or maybe I'm just an old cynic!
At any rate, these four books together represent for me the heart of my own practice, which (accurately or not) I call "Zen", and which has stood me in pretty good stead lo these many years. I recommend them to you unreservedly; may they lead you to the ultimate realization, or at least give you a few good laughs.
(Lots of information about, and more or less the entire content of, each of the four books can be found somewhere or other on the Web. But I do recommend getting an edition you can hold in your hands; this is a book that it's particularly nice to have in a form that actually exists...)
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