行雲流水, Clouds, Water, movement, flow and culture...

行雲流水、in Japanese represented as  "こううんりゅうすい" has the characters for "going" or "moving", "clouds," "flow" and water, read from up to down with the right column first.  More or less literally meaning "clouds move, water flows" it's taken as idiomatic as "go with the flow" or "going with the tide" according to on-line translations, more or less, but that's I think a bit superficial.  Oh, and the Chinese version of the translation of 行雲流水 has "fill the gap" or something like that.

Also I think Wikipedia's entry here is a bit superficial and contradictory (as I'll show in in a bit):

Unsui (Japanese: 雲水), or kōun ryūsui (行雲流水) in full, is a term specific to Zen Buddhism which denotes a postulant awaiting acceptance into a monastery or anovice monk who has undertaken Zen training. Sometimes they will travel from monastery to monastery (angya) on a pilgrimage to find the appropriate Zen master to study with.^[1]
...
The term unsui, which literally translates as "cloud, water" comes from a Chinesepoem which reads, "To drift like clouds and flow like water."^[2] Helen J. Baroni writes, "The term can be applied more broadly for any practitioner of Zen, since followers of Zen attempt to move freely through life, without the constraints and limitations ofattachment, like free-floating clouds or flowing water."^[1] According to author James Ishmael Ford, "In Japan, one receives unsui ordination at the beginning of formal ordained practice, and this is often perceived as 'novice ordination.'"^[3]

Then again,  there's this Chinese tea ceremony thing that uses the same term.   Which is why I think there's a bit of contradiction there.  I realize I might be more than slightly out of my depth here as I try to find the original poem from which 行雲流水 comes. That is to say, although I think  I can find the original poem from which 行雲流水 comes,  my knowledge of Chinese is pitifully poor to the point where there's no reasonable way I could put 行雲流水 in proper Chinese context at this point.   Maybe in 10 years...

The version of 行雲流水 that comes down to us as in Wikipedia is like a replica of a replica of a replica of something that was in a Chinese poem once. 

But that's only part of why I think the conventional "explanations" of 行雲流水 are a bit superficial...

First of all, 行雲流水 is meant to be put into 書道 (or 書法 if you prefer the Chinese term). 行雲流水  begs to be expressed as 書道.   See, unlike, say, Magritte's famous  not-a-pipe picture,  or the Zen expression "a picture of a rice cake does not satisfy hunger," 行雲流水 as 書道 is almost perfectly non-dually expressing flow without flowing, if executed even minimally competently. Or to put it another way, if you want to do 行雲流水 minimally competently, you have to express 行雲流水  in 行雲流水 .

I would love to have help finding the poem which gave fame to 行雲流水, and understand it.  But in the mean time, realize this is a bigger deal than you'll get in Wikipedia. 

無 does not mean "nothing." But it doesn't mean something either.

I'm reading something by Koryu Osaka on the 公安　無.  And he wrote what's in the title of this post more or less, or at least that's attributed to him somewhere in that text.  No matter.

I'm reading stuff on Buddhism in the blogspace, stuff that seems re-hashed, and to some degree recycled.  I've rarely, if ever, recycled anything, myself; I can't fault those who do, but I wouldn't recycle anything on this blog until I re-edit a bunch of old posts and publish them together.  At least that's my plan.

But the stuff I read on Buddhism in the blogspace...it tends towards being quite ...um...not what I'd intended to be blogging about in the Buddhist blogspace (please don't get me started on celebrity meatspace-op blog posts either, but chacun a son goûts.)  And there's still that feeling I've had of late...everything is exactly the way it should be.  Flaws and ignorance and hatred and all.   My own hatred and anger and stupidity and basest rage and all that comes with that and all that is misplaced, disowned, lost, and forgotten or repressed. That too is exactly as it should be - it is as though it is neither overdetermined or underdetermined; it's n  equations in n unknowns, so to speak.

It's all  無.     Those Buddhist blog posts, this Buddhist blog post, it's all 無.  Ditto for self/no-self,  poisons, celebrities, misplaced interpretations of sutras, vestigial rantings about George W. Bush, etc. etc.

It's exactly the way it should be; it's all the product of aggregates that have come together, dependent on previous conditions, states, actions, etc, to be exactly the way it is now.

Is this making any sense at all?  Hope so.  And the nature of the "self" is just like this.

The effort thing and resolution in practice...

In reading what Brad Warner wrote here about the Geshe thing (ugh, I can't believe people fell for this nonsense), it reminded me of a side comment that Nathan wrote here:

In the minds of many Buddhist men historically, and even some still today, enlightenment was a man's domain. And any man who wanted it better "man up" in his practice. The obsession with marathon meditation retreats and hardcore, "balls busting" koan studies you see in some convert Zen communities reminds me a lot of this ancient mud. 

 I had lots of other issues with Nathan's post as well; but I've made related points (w.r.t. those other issues) in the past and I'll make related points (w.r.t. those issues) again.   To bring out the point I want to make, though, I want to go to Ven. Warner's post:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, when you’re getting into meditation practice you’re dealing with some serious mojo. This is not to be taken lightly. And if you think you need a more intense or extreme practice to get you into the deeper stuff faster… you most assuredly do not. It’s absolutely crucial to take this stuff slowly. If you try to rush it, bad things will happen. We’re all full of lots of bad stuff. If you think you can push right through into the great enlightenment of Lord Buddha without first dealing with your own accumulated negative shit, you’re dead wrong.

I've seen unbalanced people in those places...they have them in Christian churches too.  It happens.

Ven. Warner has a point. People with issues shouldn't push themselves beyond their limits. It happens, and it will continue to happen, if only because this sort of guidance is guided towards generation of actions from which there are no words - "how much effort" or "what is my resolution to practice" begins - before there is a verbally expressible idea. I'm trying to say that, for at least the reason of how ideation is verbalized,  that someone with a less than titanium composure might commit to more than effort than he is able to commit, because he can't ideate the notion of "too much."  If you don't like that,  there's one of those quotes from William Blake, about how you never know how much is enough until you know how much is too much.

But the other comment, well, I think that comment is not informed by the experience of which I know.

The fact of the matter is, the historical Buddha himself went to extremes in his practice. Eventually he realized a middle-way course of action, but not before hitting the rails.   Typically that's the way practitioners work.  Again, you can't say "how much is right" without addressing areas from which motivation comes.   Note: the point is not to go anywhere near the rails! The point I'm trying to make is without an ongoing commitment, a resolution to effort no fruits of effort are ever realized.  

Yeah, Soto folk: I'm saying even to just sit that requires effort. At the very least the effort required to make the commitment to do so. 

But...how much effort?

Well, I'll get to that, but  first off, but in the spirit of Bill Maher, I'd like to posit a new rule: Soto folks shouldn't opine about koan ( 公案) practice.  Seriously folks, what is your point about writing about it if you don't know what it is, and  if you haven't practiced it. And just because a Soto teacher "told you" about 公案 practice doesn't mean that teacher knows anything about 公案 practice.   Brad Warner's a Soto VIP (how about that instead of 老師?) and even he's written things that were uninformed about 公案 practice.  And I can say this and stand by my point above about just sitting requiring effort because there are places where 公案 practice is 只管打坐. And yes, there are schools - White Plum, the Yasutani-based, but also Rinzai temples, where both 公案 and 只管打坐  practices are cultivated, not to mention those outside of the Japanese tradition, especially the Chinese and Vietnamese traditions, where something else entirely is going on.  I'm talking about Soto purists here, and especially those who'd rather come uncomfortably close in their practice to the notion of buji zen (無事禅.)

Oh, yes, wait, I know, the comment in question was only denigrating the "balls busting" 公案 studies. It may be that there are 老師 and such that promote unrealistic   コブラ会 ("Cobra Kai") types of practices...but a useful teacher will be getting you to have this practice as it arises from you, yourself.

And any useful giver and evaluator of 公案 practice will encourage very strongly effort to be made to get to a resolution of the 公案 - at the very least one must have the resolution to resolve the 公案.

So all of the above means that one's resolution to practice should be cultivated as much as one can without going superego on one's self. (Yes that's a self-referential statement - one shouldn't be bothered if one's going too much in one direction or the other, just resolve to practice. And then follow through.) 

Yes, 3 year silent retreats are hoo-hah. No, it's not sexist or damaging to learn how to make a great effort via resolution.   In fact it's vital for the practice of living one's life.  And don't forget Soto folks: those vows to help other sentient beings are vows.  And they come with a high barrier.  For a reason.

The Hua-t’ou (話頭） and Zen Meditation

Well even the Zennist can be read with profitability once in a while.  Today, the Zennist points to a paper on the 'net by Stuart Lachs, who unlike the Zennist, or perhaps the author you're reading at the moment, is a pretty reliable source for what it is when it comes to the facticity of Zen, though my intent is to be at least as skillful at disseminating of the true core of Zen as Lachs.  I quote:

The Chinese term Hua-t’ou can be translated as “critical phrase.” Literally it means the “head of speech” or the “point beyond which speech exhausts itself.” In Korean, hua-t’ou are known as hwadu and in Japanese as wato. In this paper I will use the Chinese term hua-t’ou exclusively. A hua-t’ou is a short phrase (sometimes a part of a koan) that can be taken as a subject of meditation and introspection to focus the mind in a particular way, which is conducive to enlightenment...

A hua-t’ou however is a stand alone, always short phrase or a part of a koan that can be taken as a subject of meditation and introspection. Though teachers may give talks about working on a hua-t’ou, there are no standardized collections of huat’ou with poetic, often complex commentary as there are with koans that require explication and some knowledge of ancient Chinese metaphor.
 

Though not widely known in western Zen circles, hua-t’ou meditation is popular in Korean and Chinese Zen. Since the famous Korean monk Chinul (1158-1210)   discovered hua-t’ou meditation late in his life, it has been the favored form of practice for Korean Zen monks to the present day. In China the practice began before the 11th century. Hsu-Yun (1840-1959), the most famous Zen monk in the 19th and 20th centuries, practiced and taught hua-t’ou meditation as his favorite form of meditation
practice.

The hua-t’ou, though popularized a long time ago, is a good method for people today: it does not require a group or regular meetings with a teacher and besides being practiced in formal seated meditation, it can or really should be practiced throughout the day, even while at work. Hence, it allows for a full time Zen practice while living and working in the world.

Lacks goes on to note the difference between koan　(公案) practice, which leads to focus on the 話頭, and shikantaza (只管打坐) practice.

I'm not really certain that 話頭 practice is largely unknown in Western Zen circles - there are a bevy of Rinzai Zen temples here in the West nowadays, as well as Korean Zen temples (not to mention descendents of Hsu Yun and others.)  Too, anyone who reads D. T. Suzuki's works on Zen will come across the 話頭 sooner or later.

But I can't but agree with Lachs' later point: the 話頭 - a way of orienting the mind, putting it in a place where critical thought is held in abeyance,  is ideally suited for being carried throughout the day.  I think it's somewhat of a disservice that is done in focusing on the "sudden enlightenment" aspects of Rinzai Zen.  If the thought of "sudden enlightenment" arises in your head, you've lost the 話頭.  So yeah, I think the Soto folks sometimes mischaracterize Rinzai practice because they really don't understand it.

And sometimes, descendants of teachers trained in Rinzai Zen make this mistake: it is a fact that some teachers in the White Plum lineage have tried to dissuade students from practicing mu (無 ) throughout the day, but yeah, Lachs is right: doing this in the midst of activity is what teachers from Ta Hui down to Hakuin have recommended.

Over on Barbara's site today, there's an exposition of the religious aspects of Buddhist practice,  triggered from a discussion with Petteri and myself.  Me, I've been very lucky to come across the 話頭, and a teacher who "teaches" it, to help me get from point A to point B, no matter how close A is to B.  There are other ways, to be sure, but this way, done with attention, is well suited for my place in life. And yes, it even is done as a way of quieting the critical mind during the rituals of Zen itself.