“When the magus faces Etchu, he bows to the teacher. The gesture might be sincere, but at the same time he steps to the right, thereby showing his hypocrisy by refusing to face him fully. Like every Zen master, Etchu has meditated for most of his life. He has reduced his needs to a minimum, calmed his passions, filled his heart with peace, ceased to identify himself with his thoughts. He knows that words are not what they designate; he is free of personal mind, for the universal spirit is manifest in him. Possessing nothing, he knows how to be truly responsible and therefore a true servant to the emperor and, through the emperor, to the nation and, through the nation, to all humanity. His mission will be fulfilled only when all living beings attain supreme consciousness. In order to unmask this wily monk who thinks he is wise but whose talent consists only of capturing illusory images by conferring certainty upon them, the sage creates the image of a river with himself watching monkeys. Their antics symbolize those of human beings: The ordinary man is a mere imitator. Like a predator, he seizes others’ ideas for himself constantly, without having really lived them. Thus the sage places a mirror before the magus, who expresses surprise that such an important person would amuse himself watching monkeys. In reality, however, it is Etchu who is observing the monkey-like nature of the supposedly omniscient mind of Daiji. The magus is unaware of this and feels certain he has already won with the second test. He thinks he has the old man’s number, and, in his vanity, he is already anticipating the prospect of replacing him and gaining power over the emperor. But then Etchu shifts into consciousness of the real. He empties his mind of all thoughts, images, words, feelings, desires, and needs. He does not go anywhere. He is everywhere and nowhere, all and nothing. The ego is gone, the mirror has vanished. Confounded, the magus can find no reflection to seize upon, and he flails and grasps in an empty space. He is unable to read an individual mind that does not exist. .”
Here I had to stop. “This is a trick, Ejo! In asking me where the master has gone, you underestimate me. We do not ‘go’ anywhere, we are not the self-image that we fabricate. There is no actor who moves with respect to a spectator. Unity excludes all duality, all change of place.”
Ejo slapped the palm of his hand with his fan. “Bravo! You remind me of a giant steamroller, demolishing the problem. But what do you say right now?” And suddenly he twisted my nose as he asked the last question. I cried out in pain and pushed him away, offended. He looked at me mockingly. “If there is no individual existence, who is it that just cried out and pushed me away?”
He must have known that I had not yet attained a level that would enable me to answer this question, for he did not wait for my reply.
“The first point is this: in your long explanation with all those details, you adopted a position of master yourself and spoke to me as to a student. There’s a good illustration of vanity! The second point is that you fell into the trap of idealizing the counselor. You described him as a perfect master who was able to nullify the magus’s powers. In our little book, when the disciple is asked where the master is, he exclaims: ‘What a pathetic incompetent!’ After this there follows a commentary that may well puzzle you: ‘When Etchu was twice discovered by Daiji, he was totally overcome by hatred.’ In your version, you made the mistake of supposing that the magus was able to read the thoughts that the counselor deliberately allowed him to read in order to expose him. Yet the commentary suggests that in the first two questions, Etchu was possessed by his role of mentor to the emperor. He was not truly himself and was instead identified by his official role of testing Daiji’s claims. The first reply came as a surprise and a blow to his pride. He was offended, which enabled Daiji to humiliate him a second time. Only with the third reply did he perceive his error. He then let go of his identification with his role and his desire to please the emperor, abandoning all his official self-importance to become simply Etchu again. This put him in a state of no mind. But this is not some sort of total disappearance. Instead, it is a detachment from past and future to enable him to be only in the mind of the present moment. . If it is warm, it is warm; if it is cold, it is cold. The mind does not create any problem beyond the here and now. It responds with absolute immediacy. This does not exclude any sensation of discomfort due to heat or cold, but the mind does not linger on such sensations any longer than the sensation lasts. Do you understand? Now — twist my nose!”
Awkwardly (his nose was rather small), I obliged him. He yelped with pain and jumped back. Then he grinned without the slightest reproach.
“When I feel pain, my mind knows pain. When the pain ends, there is no more pain in my mind. Etchu was insulted by the student because he insulted the magus. In calling him a ‘poor fox,’ he fell back into his official role, attempting to deny Daiji’s powers. Once more, he was overcome by hatred. What a pathetic incompetent! We should be grateful to those who put us in an embarrassing situation that exposes our weaknesses, for it offers us an opportunity to come closer to who we really are. Now tell me very quickly: What is the foremost weakness?”
Like all of Ejo’s sudden questions that come like a gunshot just at a time when my mind, absorbed by other thoughts, was not expecting it, this one disconcerted me. I had the sensation of falling from a dreamlike summit toward the hard ground of reality. Before me, I saw several levels of weaknesses: moral, physical, sexual, emotional — an avalanche of obstacles seemed to descend upon me, and I felt a weakness in my very essence. Who can claim to be strong when confronted with the inevitability of death? In a tiny voice, I answered: “My greatest weakness is being born.”
I will never be able to describe the look Ejo gave me then. It lasted only a fraction of a second, but it reduced me to dust. The depth of my ignorance was revealed to me. Yet instead of acknowledging this revelation, as Etchu did, I immediately fell into anger. I felt like punching him right in his cobralike eyes.
Untroubled and speaking with great tenderness, as if to a child, he whispered: “What a pathetic incompetent!”
Suddenly, I felt I understood the koan. In my very bones I felt what Etchu had experienced. I subdued my anger, joined my palms, and bowed my head.
“Thank you, Sensei.”
“Don’t bow yet, we haven’t gone deeply enough! Here is a koan that is capable of throwing you into the real abyss. Listen: In a temple in Kyoto, why is there a cat in the painting depicting the Buddha’s entrance into nirvana?”
I answered with a long string of questions. “Is the cat in nirvana? Is the cat the Buddha’s companion? Does the cat come there alone and find the Buddha there? Perhaps the cat is an answer to Joshu’s koan: ‘Yes, the cat has Buddha nature’? Or is it a symbol? Felines see in the dark; they hunt at night. The Buddha saw in the dark night of the soul, saw through all the mysteries, but if he is depicted as entering nirvana, it means he is not there yet. Perhaps the cat symbolizes the Buddha’s animal nature, which is not yet overcome. When the cat disappears, the Buddha will dwell forever in the center of nirvana. Or perhaps the opposite is the answer: the true Buddha is the cat, the animal nature, and the Buddha is one of its dreams. Does that mean that there is no spiritual Buddha, that what really awakens is our body when we see that we are simply animals?”