What is the meaning of the first maxim? The monk is looking for truth in the meaning of Rinzai’s teachings. Rinzai tells him not to ask such questions, but to trust his inner treasure and surrender himself to meditation. When the seal is removed, the red ink becomes visible. Though the letter has not yet been read, the roles of the guest and host are already decided. Though I am not capable of understanding the teaching, I must give myself to the work that submerges me in essential being. Ejo is the seal, I am the sealed letter. I must remove the seal in order to find myself and know that this self is the same as that of Ejo, and the Buddha.
What is the meaning of the second maxim? The monk remains a prisoner of his search for ideal truth, for a personal self. Why should the work be inferior to the ideal? Without feeding words to the ravenous intellect, sit calmly, concentrate, and observe the unfolding of life until you are yourself the truth: this is the way.
What is the meaning of the third maxim? There is no distinction between a first, second, and third truth. There are no degrees. Unity acts bluntly, like a hammer blow that breaks open our head. When the puppet dances on the stage, the movement comes from the hand of the actor hidden in its clothes. In the beginning, the master is the puppeteer and the student is the puppet. Finally, the student understands that the master is a force inside him, a force that does not belong to him.
If you understand the first maxim, you will become the Buddha’s master. If you understand the second maxim, you will become a master of men and gods. But if you understand the third maxim, you will not even be able to save yourself. The reality that appears to us as something different in different situations is what it is, neither more nor less. In reciting these maxims, you can imagine yourself as a master greater than the Buddha. Like a blind man’s dog, you think you are leading essence. You set up differences between men and gods, you have the impression that awakening has two faces, you make judgments about right and wrong so that finally you cannot even find yourself.
Sometimes you remove the man without removing the surroundings. This is an attitude of the mind in which the object dominates the subject. You abstract the man (subject), but not the surroundings (object). Sometimes you remove the surroundings without removing the man. Here, the mind fixes on the subjective pole, but it denies the objective. Sometimes you remove both surroundings and man. This is a state of emptiness in which the distinction between self and other is eliminated. Sometimes you remove neither the surroundings nor the man. In complete unity with yourself, like a child, you act spontaneously, thus returning to the ordinary world. Subject and object are recognized “as they are.”
Ejo sat in meditation before me, indifferent as a mountain, but I knew that in some way, he was waiting for me. The situation was so important that my mind lost track of time. In a few seconds, I was able to complete thoughts that would have taken hours in other circumstances. The concepts of guest and host occupied my attention. Which of us was which? At first, I saw Ejo as the host, the one who was offering consciousness, and myself as the guest who is asking for consciousness. Yet this relation of master and disciple, subject and object, confused me. One of us represented the world of circumstances. Was it me? Then was Ejo the other, the one who produced them? He was the only totally honest man I had ever known in my life. I loved him with the love of an orphan looking for a father. He knew everything, I knew nothing. . Stop it, Alejandro! Enough of that sentimental self-indulgence! Was I seeking truth or a loving father figure to heal my sad, abandoned child?
Now my mind took another leap. Master and disciple are in reality symbols of an inner process: essential being and ego. Hence the host is the first and the guest the second. But I am not the owner of the house, nor am I the house itself. My reason is a simple guest, an ephemeral phantom in eternal consciousness. Before meeting Ejo, I considered my intellect to be reality. Anything that could not be put into words was untrustworthy. Thus the guest was usurping the place of the host. Having little or nothing to offer, this false host could only strut in front of himself, deaf and blind to the other. When I first sought out Ejo, I did so as a beggar, with the feeling that he was the generous guest and I was merely a thirsty, bottomless well. My demand was without limit, infinite. With mouth wide open like a baby, I wanted him to feed me without limit, for I wanted to devour the entire universe. The illusory guest of an absolute host, I lived like the seeker in the Sufi story who weeps constantly, thinking of his absolute need for God without ever imagining that God might also need him. When I had understood that the mind can never grasp itself, I realized that instead of emptying it, I should simply let it go, allowing thoughts and impressions to come and go without identifying with them. Ejo and I both were master and disciple. My ego created essential being and essential being created the ego. Finally, I realized that I was now with Ejo not because I needed to obtain something from him, but for the pleasure of being with him, vibrating at the same level of consciousness, him with his ego, me with mine, like two blind men who have learned to see but keep their guide dog — not because they need him, but out of affection for him.
A fresh wind blew away the gray fog. It shook the leaves of the trees, making a pleasant sound. From the whole forest a music arose like the vibrations of the surface of a lake agitated by shoals of fish. The birds began to sing. Even the noise of the traffic was in harmony with the whole. The world had transformed itself into an orchestra of angels. I ceased to see Ejo either as upon a heavenly summit or in the depths of the earth. He was a man like me, a clown like me, a Buddha like me.
“Ejo, it was my anguished ego that first brought me to your teaching. It is thanks to you, essential being and host, that on this day, the guest is finally a good disciple who has learned to be a mirror. He does not take anything for himself. He receives what is given without attempting to keep it. He sinks his feet in the mud but leaves no footprints.”
Happy, and grinning so that I could see the metal caps on his teeth, Ejo said: “So! And what have you decided about the kyosaku?”
“I accept it, Master. But I will not keep it. I have no desire to give blows to sleepy monks. When Bodhidharma*28 sat in silent meditation before the wall of a cave for nine years, he needed no one to strike his shoulder blades. Neither did Eka,†29 a man who was capable of cutting off his arm to convince Bodhidharma to accept him as a disciple. Nor did Sosan,‡30 the leprous disciple of Eka who died in meditation, standing under a tree.”
At first I thought that Ejo was angry and was about to let out a roar that would frighten me and the hundreds of birds around us. He closed his eyes and began to sway back and forth, fanning himself. Suddenly, he snapped shut his fan, opened his eyes, and exclaimed:
“You’re right! From Doshin§ 31 on, the wandering life came to an end. Zen became a government-sponsored religion and monasteries began to take in children. From that time on, an iron discipline was instituted. They began to strike the young ones who fell asleep meditating — but is it really that important that individuals not fall asleep during meditation? There is nothing to lose, nothing to achieve. Arriving or leaving, essential being is always there. When you eat, you eat. When you meditate, you meditate. When you sleep, you sleep. The blows of the stick offer nothing except discipline for a childish mind.
“In the Sierra Tarahumara I became ill with an inflammation of the heart muscle. My Indian disciples brought me back to the city. It seems I have to have an operation, but the real wound is to my child’s heart, and it is the real sufferer. When I was nine years old and the doors of the monastery closed upon me, the first thing I did was cry out: ‘I don’t want to stay here! Let me out!’ They put me in a dormitory where I was the youngest boy. When I failed to hear the bell ring at dawn, they kicked me awake. I had to scrub the floor while the other boys meditated. I didn’t do a very good job, and I was kicked for it. At my first breakfast of rice soup, the cook hit me with the ladle because I made noise drinking it. He also made me chew in total silence, without wasting a single grain of rice, but I couldn’t help spilling a few drops of the soup — more blows for that. Then they told me to use a hatchet to chop large pieces of wood into smaller ones. When I got splinters in my hand, they only made fun of me, calling me clumsy. At bedtime that evening, a twenty-year-old monk, the head of our group, asked me to massage him. The other boys started to giggle but stifled the sound quickly by covering their heads with the blankets. The monk told me that I was to spend the night in bed with him. ‘You will learn our customs. From now on, your job will be to soothe and relax me.’ Under the covers, he took one of my hands and placed it on his erect penis. ‘Imagine you are cleaning a carrot. Go on, do it with all your strength!’ For a whole year, I had to satisfy his whims. What could I do about it? Among monks, just as among prisoners or sailors, peoples’ sexual problems are worked out by abusing the weakest. When a new boy arrived, my torture finally came to an end. Afterward, others followed him.