Magic Style

Zen Master Jŏngāng Yŏngsin was a famous Korean teacher of the early twentieth century, and he was noted for never distinguishing between monastics and lay-people. He would often pose the following kōan to his students: “In ancient China, a disciple asked Zen Master Zhàozhōu, ‘Why did Bodhidharma come to China?’ Zhàozhōu replied, ‘Hair grows on wide teeth.’ If you attain Zhàozhōu’s meaning then you have seen Bodhidharma’s true face. If you don’t understand this, you don’t understand Zhàozhōu or Bodhidharma.”

Zen Master Jŏngāng often used this kōan while teaching his students. This kōan is a magic or freedom style question. To explain this, my grand teacher Zen Master Sŭngsan, would sometimes use the degrees on a compass to explain Zen. He separated circle into zero degrees, ninety degrees, one hundred eighty degrees, two hundred seventy degrees and three hundred sixty degrees with each of these four points having a specific meaning, zero and three hundred and sixty degrees are at the same point on the circle. The Zen Compass also corresponds to a famous poem by Chán Master Qingyuan Xingsi who was a disciple of Chán Master Huìnéng, the Sixth Ancestor of Chán Buddhism. The poem is as follows:

before I had studied Chán for thirty years,
I saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers.
when I arrived at a more intimate awareness,
I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains,
and rivers are not rivers.
now that I have attained Chán’s very substance I am at rest.
for it is just that I see mountains once again as mountains,
and rivers once again as rivers.

From zero to ninety degrees you are attached to name and form. At this point you are attached to your body; you are also attached to I-me-mine, essentially you are attached to the sensory world. If you are attached to some object, then you will eventually become dissatisfied because everything in the cosmos is in constant flux. If you are attached to another person, attached to your possessions, attached to your wealth or attached to your status, then when any of these things change, as they inevitably will, you will enter into the realm of duḥkha. Duḥkha is at the core of the Four Noble Truth’s and its translation roughly corresponds to a number of terms in English which includes suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness, sorrow, affliction, anxiety, dissatisfaction, discomfort, anguish, stress, misery, and frustration. Although duḥkha is commonly translated in English as suffering, its meaning in Buddhist philosophy is more analogous to disquietude as in the condition of being unsettled.

From ninety to one hundred eighty degrees is a realm of experience that parallels the concept of form being emptiness, and emptiness being form. From Qingyuan’s poem it is mountains are rivers, and rivers are mountains. Śākyamuni Buddha taught that everything in the Cosmos is impermanent; however, in the West we are brought up to believe “I am here and there is something over there. This is, in part, thanks to the Father of Modern Philosophy, who lived in the seventeenth century. His name was René Descartes and he distilled human existence down into the simple statement cogito ergo sum which is Latin for I think, therefore I am. Descartes also played a major influence in modern mathematics by creating the Cartesian coordinate system which allowed geometric shapes, for the first time, to be expressed in algebraic equations. However, there was a major flaw in his Cartesian coordinate system because, as a Jesuit, he did not consider that the number zero existed. This belief originated within the Catholic Church who professed that zero, or the empty void could not exist as it suggested that something existed prior to God. In contrast to this Western shortcoming, in the world that Siddhārtha Gautama inhabited some twenty five centuries before Descartes, the concept of śūnya meaning void or empty was already extant. In fact the oldest known text to use a decimal place-value system that includes a zero is from a Jain Sūtra entitled the Lokavibhâga. Therefore, it is understandable that Descartes wouldn’t have considered asking, if I am not thinking, then what am I? Indirectly, Descartes’ theory proved that our thinking creates the concept of I-ness. What his theory failed to examine was that if I am not thinking, perhaps there is still something. Śūnyatā, or complete unbounded openness, is at the core of Mahayana Buddhism and is the basis of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra.

So, at one hundred and eighty degrees Śūnyatā appears—and everything disappears, there are no words and no form. If you open your mouth, this is already a mistake; if you take any action, this is also a big mistake. But, what is nothing I? In kōan interviews, Zen Teachers often use this theme by asking, “What is nothingness?” This is one hundred eighty degrees.

The next position on the compass is between one hundred eighty and two hundred seventy degrees; at this point we attain magic or freedom. This means that you can do anything with no hindrances. You can change mountains into squirrels, or oceans into a grain of sand; in this realm any kind of thought is not a problem. So Jŏngāng’s kōan is a two hundred seventy degree style kōan. Hair grows on wide teeth, but what in the world are wide teeth, and can hair actually grow on teeth? If you visit India or China, there are several religious sites that have enshrined some of Śākyamuni Buddha’s teeth; however, when Buddha died he was cremated, so how can they possibly have Buddha’s teeth? Obviously someone has made a mistake. Perhaps Buddha’s teeth are magic. Zen students are not attached to name and form so visiting these sites is OK, but hair growing on teeth is not possible.

Magic style is similar to a child’s mind or a cartoon where anything is possible. Children’s minds are very open and not attached to time and space. However, by the time we grow up, time becomes very important—and space seems to separate us from those things we want. At this point time and space begin to control us. Yet originally, time and space can never control us. Where does the concept of time and space come from? We have created these theories and they have replaced the actual existence that is us. If we attain before thought, then we can attain no time and no space.

It is common to use the word now in our daily lives. The truth is that if you say now, by the time the word comes out now has already passed. Now is a concept that doesn’t exist. In the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (Diamond Sūtra) Śākyamuni Buddha says that present mind cannot reach enlightenment, past mind cannot reach enlightenment, and future mind also cannot reach enlightenment. This passage troubled Zen Master Dòngshān, as he was known as the Master of the Diamond Sūtra, but eventually led to his awakening. If past mind, present mind, and future mind cannot attain enlightenment, then our original mind doesn’t have present, past or future. Our thinking creates past, present and future. If we stop thinking, then there is no time and space. We only have this moment. This moment is always manifesting infinite time and infinite space.

So, why did Bodhidharma come to China? Zhàozhōu answered, “hair grows on wide teeth;” yet later when another student asked Zhàozhōu the same question he said, “the cypress tree in the garden.” Why did he answer the same question differently? Zhàozhōu, like any great Zen Master, had many different types of students. Because of this diversity he utilized different teaching techniques for each of his students. It is like comparing the taste of food between different people, some people like mustard and some prefer catsup; while some like sweet and others like salty. Each of us is a little different yet when our thinking appears, then like and dislike are created. If we cease the endless habit of thinking, then everything in life is no problem.