Baishui Zen

In this post we’re continuing to read Outline of Practice. We’ll follow the same format as before, discussing the difference between Red Pine’s translation of the text and my own amateur one, from the original Chinese included. Stuff in my translation that is arguably missing from Red Pine is in blue. Stuff that Red Pine writes that disagrees with my translation is in red. Nothing is meant by the color coding, it’s just selected to stand out.

First we have:

The Text

二隨緣行者。眾生無我並緣業所轉。苦樂齊受皆從緣生。若得勝報榮譽等事。是我過去宿因所感。今方得之緣盡還無。何喜之有。得失從緣心無增減。喜風不動冥順於道。是故說言隨緣行。

Next, I offer my translation.

Second, the practice of adapting to conditions. All living beings are without an “I”, being comprised of a flux of conditions and causes. Hardship and happiness are equally received, both by dependent origination. If one obtains superior rewards, honors, praise, or similar things, this situation passes because of these influences. Just for now one obtains it; when the conditions are exhausted, it returns to nothingness. Why (then,) should we have joy? Gains and losses come from conditions, mind is unchanging. The winds of joy do not move us as we follow the path. This is what is called the practice of adapting to conditions.

And now, Red Pine’s translation:

Second, adapting to conditions. As mortals, we’re ruled by conditions, not by ourselves. All the suffering and joy we experience depend on conditions. If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it’s the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past. When conditions change, it ends. Why delight in its existence? But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes. Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the Path.

Analysis

Lots of interesting stuff to talk about here, even though this passage is shorter than the last one. The first thing that stands out to me is Red Pine’s usage of the word “mortals.” We encountered this in the previous part too, when he was saying that “neither gods nor mortals will know when a deed will bear fruit.” In that context, the relevant Chinese was 非天非人, with the repeated character meaning “neither/nor,” so literally “neither heaven nor man.” I think Red Pine likes to use this word to distinguish ordinary sentient beings from Buddhas of the broader Mahayana tradition, or other Chinese supernatural beings like spirits or demigods. I’m less put off by the choice this time than last time. 眾 means “multitude” or “crowd,” and 生 means life, living, birth, arise. In Buddhist contexts, it is used as I’ve translated here, to simply mean “living beings.”

Furthermore, 業 means “profession/trade” or “business,” but in a Buddhist context, it often means “karma.” On the other hand, karma literally means “causation.” Throughout Soothill and Hodous, you can find meanings for this hanzi which range from karmic as having or implying lifetime-crossing implications, to literal actions and their immediately caused consequences. It’s important to understand that because karma is one word in Sanskrit with a range of such meanings, some reflection on the context is necessary to understand the scope of the causation in question. Buddhist practitioners will have less distinction than we do between secular, physical causation, and spiritual or ethical karma. I’ve chosen the word “cause” here because it fits neatly with the standard English phrase “causes and conditions” to discuss dependent origination/arising and emptiness.

The next sentence is quite different between our translations, and without any arrogance I will say, I like mine better, but I should indicate that the red “suffering” highlighted in the body is not an error in Red Pine but rather a choice of my own. 苦 is used to mean a variety of things that all center on negative experiences, like distress, sorrow, hardship and pain. Chinese Buddhists have often used this hanzi for dukkha, or discontentment/ suffering. I’ve translated it as “hardship” because I like the alliteration in the phrase “hardship and happiness.” The second thing I want to point out is the hanzi 齊 which definitely means “even,” “uniform” or “equal,” so this is an element that definitely belongs in the translation. Lastly, 緣生 have individually appeared already, and unsurprisingly, the hanzi for “conditions” and “arise” together mean “dependent arising.” We have to be a bit careful with sheng 生, because it also means things like “to be born” or “alive/life.” I think there’s clearly commonalities between these concepts. Sometimes we have to puzzle out what a flexible hanzi means, but one familiar with Buddhist texts will be very familiar with dependent origination/arising, and I don’t see how else you can read it here. The takeaway is that Red Pine is not assuming we are familiar with these ideas, and so doesn’t refer to them.

The next passage in blue, I’ve left it very literal in my own translation, because it reflects a style of writing that I’ve seen in Mahayana literature, but I actually prefer Red Pine’s translation here. Somewhere in the middle is probably ideal for comprehensibility. The key difficulty with the phrasing is in “是我過去宿因所感。” Literally, the characters mean, in sequence “this ‘I’ passes leaves lodge because these factors.” This is not really intelligible, and so I want to massage this into English. First, it’s really common in the Nirvana sutra and Avatamsaka sutras to say things like “this mind” to refer to the state of mind or frame of mind. Similarly, for referring to the self. Because Buddhist thought denies the existence of an intrinsic self, it becomes OK to discuss the self which is at hand, and thus say things like “this I,” to refer to how one perceives one’s self right now. In fact, if the Blue Cliff Record is to be believed, Bodhidharma famously doubled down on this belief in his confrontation with Emperor Wu of Liang:

Emperor Wu of Liang asked the great master Bodhidharma, “What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?” Bodhidharma said, “Empty, without holiness.” The emperor said, “Who is facing me?” Bodhidharma replied, “I don’t know.” The Emperor did not understand. After this, Bodhidharma crosses the Yangtze River and came to the kingdom of Wei.

I’m sure at some point in the future, we’ll look at the cases in the BCR in their original Chinese as part of the Reading Zen project, but the point here is that Bodhidharma will not even agree that his “self” exists enough to have a signifying name that the Emperor could call him. So for this little essay, he addresses those of us who are not Zen masters, and instructs us to understand that the state of elatedness we find ourselves in when receiving praise is temporary.

The second point in this somewhat confusing phrase is the pair 過去. The first one means to “pass, go across”, and the second means “to go away, leave, depart, etc.” I think the most reasonable interpretation for them together is to think of it as saying that the rewards and praise and such ‘come and go because of *these factors.* Well, what are “these factors?” This is the third issue with the phrase. Red Pine’s translation goes out of its way to clarify the matter for us, which is why I think I like his better. What he points out is that Bodhidharma is not merely saying “everything’s empty, don’t feel good when something good happens.” He means, “the varying causes and conditions that are the explanation for dependent origination go back across an unknowable amount of time. We set things in motion, as do the actions of others, which we experience in the unknowable future.” If we’re to be happy, it’s not when the reward comes to us, but when we put into motion the actions which will karmically return to us.

On the other hand, the next part also adds some further context.

The hanzi 喜 means “like, love, thing to be joyous about, joy, to be pleased, to be happy, to be fond of, delighted,” and so on and so forth. It’s very flexible. Red Pine translated this sentence as “why delight in its existence?” I think this is a good translation also because it places the joy in context. Bodhidharma is saying “why should we cherish or be made happy by temporary things?” He’s not calling for total apathy or neutrality all the time, but rather, the elimination of the impulsive feelings that come from things which come and go. If we’re to take pleasures in our works, it’s from the work itself in the present moment, and for its own sake. In the commentary to the cited case in the Blue Cliff Record, Zen Master Yunmen said that the “holy truths” were a “donkey-tethering stake.” This is a pretty scathing criticism to my ear. It sounds to me like to follow them around is to be a tethered donkey, a silly beast that is tied down to certain concepts, and relates to Zen’s colorful relationship to the rest of Mahayana literature. But this comment did not exist in a vacuum. Liang’s own relationship with Buddhism is one that is well-documented in Chinese history.

Wu became involved with Buddhism after the death of his wife. It was said that he met with a practitioner of divination, who told him he could secure a better afterlife for his wife through the attainment of additional good karma with his position as head of state. Wu took this advice seriously, and began sponsoring the construction of Buddhist temples, the reproduction and dissemination of sutras, and generally a supporter of Chinese Buddhism. He was nicknamed the Bodhisattva Emperor, and the state history of China was very unhappy about the presence of this case in the Blue Cliff Record at the time of its publication some 600 years later, as it appeared to make a mockery of him, calling him stupid, and so on. But as I read it, a significant part of the reasoning for these insults isn’t that these actions are bad, but that they miss the point of the Buddhadharma. Wu is chasing good karma as a form of religious zealotry out of attachment for a loved one. It’s sort of ironic how this misses the point. He is tethered to the holy truths because while he can grasp the verbiage of Buddhism and what it prescribes us to do, he cannot grasp why we are instructed to do these things. Karma isn’t some kind of cosmic currency – do the good thing, get the good karma. On the contrary, it’s the underlying causal fabric of the world itself. Wu will never be able to earn enough karma on someone else’s behalf to pacify his feelings of loss.

The Zen record contains plenty of other examples of prominent instructors criticizing or defying the tenets of what you might call “normative” Buddhism for the same reason. Killing cats, engaging with mountain gods, criticizing priests and so forth, all of which seem like they should be “sins” for a Buddhist, or at least, be some kind of bad karma. Why? Because it is pointless to engage in a rigid philosophical or religious system if that system does not provide you something transcendental, and that is what Bodhidharma is addressing here. States will rise and fall, temples be built and be destroyed, and an innumerable number of cats will live and die anyway. In the Nirvana sutra, as we are reading on this blog, the great Bodhisattva Kasyapa will beg the Buddha to stay in this world for a trillion years or more, or whatever unreasonably long time you reckon what a kalpa consists of. All of these temporary things are insignificant specks to a Buddha. In a vacuum, of course it is wrong to hurt another sentient being for no reason, but the point of the rule isn’t just to police conduct, it’s to instruct us on a deeper compassion for other beings. In particular, we are being instructed to have joy for those things which are eternal and unchanging rather than simply fleeting. And to return to the text we are discussing, Bodhidharma tells us one thing which is truly eternal. Mind. When the mind is focused and clear in the present moment, the works we do bring us happiness. If any readers are not familiar with the unchanging “clear” nature of mind, I will direct you to my Approaching the Path series, where we have a discussion of the concept of mind and how it relates to rebirth.

Conclusion

When I was looking over the text in English, I thought for sure that the phrase “the winds of joy” would not literally be in the text, but I was happy to see that it was. We always enjoy a good natural metaphor on this blog. I really like this metaphor because as we are discussing in Approaching the Path, the traditional Buddhist concept of emotion is different from ours in the anglosphere. One relevant view of emotion is that it is a kind of disturbance from something neutral. I think “winds of joy” do an excellent job capturing this. The flow of the wind represents a deviation from neutrality of air pressure, and it happens even though the wind is not sentient. It simply flows when the causes and conditions are right. Moreover, Bodhidharma doesn’t say this is bad. He says the winds don’t move us, but not that we don’t feel them. We acknowledge the wind, maybe get a coat or an umbrella if we expect storms ahead, and let them pass by us, for better or for worse. This is the nature of adapting to conditions. Not good or bad, easy or hard, it simply is.

The more time I am spending with the text, and the more writing I am doing for a non-Buddhist audience on this blog, the more I’m coming around to Red Pine’s translations. This little paragraph was shorter than the ones we’ve done previously in this series, but Bodhidharma really knows how to pack the meaning in. At least, so it seems to me, looking back on these writings over a thousand years later. Still, reading what text was actually written is very important to me, since I am also not an ordinary reader, completely unfamiliar with the Chan tradition. It’s been pointed out to me that to make a translation very much requires making choices and interpreting, and in the spirit of doing that honestly, I really like sticking with the text, which hopefully I’m managing to show is truly steeped in the dharma. I’ll let Red Pine do my embellishing and simplifying for me with gratitude, and enjoy the text for itself. I may not need him to explain the text to me, but if you are reading this blog, probably you don’t read Chinese, and I think there’s virtue in the idea that any given text could be someone’s first exposure.