the story of hakuin

Many of us have an extraordinarily superficial understanding of what Buddha described as the complete unexcelled awakening. In essence, Buddha said that there is an absolute and infinite world that is unified outside of thought and that most of us never find it. He said that this world is always present yet remains unseen. He also said that love is the dominant force manifested in that world and that the spirit of love always supersedes logic or rational thought as a basis for action. He said that anyone who discovers this experience will also find freedom from life and death and that nothing in the ordinary world is worth anything compared to finding this ultimate treasure.
Because indoctrinated thinking habits lead to a kind of existential blindness, it can often be helpful to read about unfamiliar religious figures. The story of Hakuin and Xuěfēng Yìcún, for example, deals with finding the unknowable truth from a radically different cultural perspective.
In 884 ACE, Xuěfēng Yìcún, a Chinese Buddhist spiritual master who had over a thousand disciples, one day told his monks that just prior to his death in the future, he would give a great shout. Three years later, during a period of civil unrest, some bandits who had come to loot his monastery temple murdered Xuěfēng. As he died, he yelled so loudly that villagers reported they heard the yell over two miles away.
About a thousand years later, in 1705 ACE, Hakuin, a young Japanese monk, was greatly troubled when he heard this story. “If even a great master like Xuěfēng could not die peacefully,” he thought, “what hope is there for me?” Nevertheless, Hakuin meditated each day in an effort to free himself from reflective thought and to reach a deep enough level of mind to understand why Xuěfēng yelled when he was murdered. Five years later, he had a major enlightenment experience whereupon in great joy he exclaimed, “Wonder of wonders. I, myself, am Xuěfēng unharmed!” Hakuin then visited Shoju, a living master, to receive confirmation of his understanding. However, Shoju indicated that his understanding was still very limited and laughingly called him “a poor hole-dwelling creature.”
Later, after much more hard practice, Hakuin was crossing a stream when he had an enlightenment experience so great that he dropped all of his belongings and fell down into the water laughing. Some passing people thought that he had gone mad and assisted him from the river, but Hakuin could only sit helplessly on the riverbank and continue laughing with joy and happiness at what he had discovered.
After this experience, Hakuin was a changed person and he began attracting many followers. Ultimately, he became the teacher of hundreds of monastics and thousands of lay-people and became one of the most beloved spiritual teachers in seventeenth-century Japan. Today, he is remembered in the West as the man who developed the well known but little-understood existential test question, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” (Hakuin used this question and several variations of it to discern to what extent people had transcended reflective thought).
After about thirteen years of effort, Hakuin discovered a world which most of us never find. After he found it, he no longer desired anything for himself. After he found it, he became filled with love and compassion and his only concern was helping others. He spent the next fifty years of his life telling everyone he met that the most important thing in life is to discover one’s identity.
Many of us waste our time arguing about scriptures and how we ought to follow particular codes of conduct or adhere to particular systems of belief, but this is a great mistake. Scriptures, beliefs, and codes of conduct will not lead to freedom from life and death. They will not eradicate ego, they will not produce love and compassion, and they will certainly not lead to some idea of enlightenment. If we want to find the simple teaching that Buddha insisted, is worth more than anything else, then we must spend as much time as possible learning to transcend the habit of conception. We must practice looking, listening, and experiencing without distinction. We must practice suspending our internal speech and ideation so that our mind will stop hiding from us the fantastic kingdom in which we already live. If we want to experience the truth, then we must strive to perceive what lies behind the images and ideas that we project and to which we become so attached. We must learn to see the world just as it is.