A Board Carrying Monk

Zen Buddhist practices are not outward regulations for living, rather Zen Buddhist practices are inward forms of personal liberation. ~ Wonji Dharma

The true teaching always makes us feel uncomfortable, if it doesn't make us feel uncomfortable, it is not the true teaching. (This is a slightly different wording, which I take all the blame for, of a quote from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in Zen Mind, Beginners Mind.) 

“Objectively this teaching is simply the basic truth that everything changes. Dogen-zenji said, 'Teaching which does not sound as if it is forcing something on you is not true teaching.' The teaching itself is true, and in itself does not force anything upon us, but because of our human tendency we receive the teaching as if something was being forced on us. But whether we feel good or bad about it, this truth exists. If nothing exists, this truth does not exist. Buddhism exists because of each particular existence.

We should find perfect existence through imperfect existence. We should find perfection in imperfection. For us, complete perfection is not different from imperfection. The eternal exists because of non-eternal existence. In Buddhism it is a heretical view to expect something outside this world.”

Essentially, the things in life that don't make us feel comfortable are there to show us something, those things we can breeze by are the items we don't need to focus on. So, if we read a precept about stealing and we feel ambivalent about it then perhaps that isn't a problem in our lives, if we read it and start thinking well this doesn't apply to such and such or so and so, then perhaps we should examine it a bit deeper. 

Many of us come to Zen practice and believe we have found ‘the way’, we espouse it and sing songs of praise to ‘the way’ we have found. We go out and teach ‘the way’ to others thinking that we have it. I have heard it said this is like carrying a big plank of wood on our shoulder that prevents us from seeing the ‘other’ side of anything we are looking at. This was a common metaphor that first appeared in Chàn Buddhism around the late 6th or early 7th Century ACE and it is something I’d like to explore with you.

We all become excited that we have discovered a path this is meaningful in our hearts, and because of the great transformation that we personally undergo, we start to believe we have the answer for the world. We become steadfast in our zeal and march headstrong into the lion’s den to confront whatever issue we believe we have tamed in our own lives. This lion’s den, which is made solely by our thinking, is of course the worldly phenomenon that is out of synch with our own view. Additionally, if we run headlong into our self-made lion’s lair, our demon lion along with the world will devour us quickly if we don’t learn to bend and adapt and to listen to others’ views.

The lion is a metaphor we use in Zen to represent ‘an unmoving mind.’ This doesn’t mean a mind stuck in its own ideas, it means a mind that is open to what is occurring around it. There is a catch phrase we use about keeping our center and not chasing random ideas. “The dog runs after the bone, the lion claws and devours the thrower.” So, this is not a normal lion with insatiable appetite, it is only one who sits patiently awaiting the truth to show up, and when it does, even if the truth is in the form of a lamb, it welcomes this hapless animal into its den. On the other hand, if the incorrect should appear, it will be shredded and devoured.

It is often taught that there is neither good nor bad in the world of the absolute, and yet good and bad do manifest in the relative world. When we begin to mistake the relative world for the absolute world we confuse ourselves and others around us, however, if we take the plank of ‘the way’ off our shoulder we may begin to realize that all of the ways are ‘the way.’ This is what we call ‘truth world.’ In the truth world we realize correct situation, correction function and correct relationship. We adapt constantly to a changing world, and we can truly believe that ‘it is all good.’ 

If others are acting in a way we do not like, it doesn’t mean to condemn them; however, we also have a commitment to doing no harm in this world if we are to consider ourselves followers of the Buddha. The great Korean Buddhist Monk Wonhyo taught about knowing when precepts were open and closed. This can be understood in the context of, sometimes doing no harm means causing disruption in the world around us. Mohandas Gandhi who was a proponent of Jain non-violence was quoted as saying, "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good. Anger is the enemy of non-violence and pride is a monster that swallows it up."

The ideas of right and wrong and good and evil are seemingly a pit of vipers we don’t want to walk into. I love that Seung Sahn Dae Jong Sa usually avoided using the words good or bad, he mostly chose to say correct and incorrect when dealing with those types of situations. This is a subtle use of language and an important one. So we don’t weigh things on the scale of good and bad, we view it from whether an act is causing harm to something or someone. If we choose to oppose something in our lives we must weigh the options carefully and aspire to do no violence or to give rise to anger in our opposition. It is not a normal way of acting and with fortitude and diligence we can discover a loving heart doesn’t merely mean an inactive or passive one. 

The issue with espousing a single way of belief is that it becomes a totalitarian path, there is only one way to the mountain top and that just happens to be the one I follow. We sometimes refer to this in Zen as being stuck in the ‘absolute,’ The old masters called this ‘the stink of zen.’ The absolute actually refers to śūnyatā which is beyond words and speech, so by making ‘our way’ and offering it to the world as ‘the way’ we actually are offending the teachings of the Buddha. We want to do good in our lives, we aspire to be moral upright followers of the Buddha. So we form ideas about what to do and how to do, these constructs and ideas are what block us from our own Buddha Nature. 

There is a kongàn in the Jingde Chuan Deng Lu, which was compiled by Jingak Hyesim, and this case speaks to this very point we are examining today.

Case 639. Mùzhōu’s Plank Carrier 睦州擔板

“Chàn Master Mùzhōu Dàomíng called out to a monk, ‘Great Virtuoso!’

The monk turned his head and the master said, ‘You plank carrier.’

睦州喚僧云,“大德!”僧迴首. 師云,“擔板漢.”

Soen Master Seolhwa’s Commentary: A board-carrier is this monk turning his head in response to the sound. This is plank-carrying. Even if he did not turn his head, he still could not escape being a plank-carrier.”

擔板漢者, 這僧隨聲回首, 是擔板也. 直饒不回首, 亦未免擔板漢也.

Mùzhōu Dàomíng ([Ch:] 睦州道明) (780-877) Dharma Heir of Huángbò Xīyùn and dharma brother to Línjì Yìxuán.

A different version of this gōng’àn can be found in the Jingde chuandeng lu: “When he (Mùzhōu) saw a lecturer monk, he would call his chief seat. If the (lecturer) monk responded, the master would say, ‘Narrow-minded fellow.’” Here, “narrow-minded” (dānbǎn擔板) can be more literally translated as “carrying a wooden board or plank on one’s shoulders,” which functions as a metaphor for someone who can only see in one direction, hence the translation “narrow-minded.”

Some authors have translated dānbǎn as meaning blinkered; literally, “to shoulder a plank.” This is to say someone who is carrying this plank is to examine them as narrow. The board or plank carried on the shoulder obstructs one’s field of vision to the right or the left.

Suzuki Roshi once gave a talk, “When you sit, you are independent from various beings, and also you are related to various beings. When you have perfect composure in your practice, it means that you include everything. You are not just you. You are the whole world or the whole cosmos, and you are a Buddha.”

“You may say that it is not possible to be ordinary and at the same time holy. When you think this way, your understanding is one-sided. We call someone who understands things from one side a tambancan, ‘someone who carries a board on his shoulder.’ Because you carry a big board on your shoulder, you cannot see the other side.”

Cast away your planks, and boards my sisters and brothers and walk freely in this world unhindered by constructs and thoughts. Trust in the Buddha’s teaching and make sure that in your life it causes you and others no harm. If you must act, then do it with kindness and charity keeping ‘moment mind’ and adapting to the changing landscape around you. We are not perfect beings and sometimes we………? Keep close to your kesa, hold your huàtóu constantly, act in kindness, compassion and love.

A Day in the Life

Today I posted some pictures of the virtual meetings that I have weekly with my personal students, I have 23 students who I meet with for a minimum of one hour each and every week, unless there is travel, illness or a retreat taking place. Many have questioned why I meet so long with students as this is not the ‘correct’ model for kōan practice that was brought to the West by the various teachers. I have been meeting with students for almost 14 years now and have only rarely participated in kōan interviews lasting only minutes. My second teacher, Zen Master Ji Bong had a reputation in the Kwan Um School of Zen as having a ‘professor style’ to his kongàn interviews.

I also had the opportunity also to study with Zen Master Seung Sahn in the interview room as he would make an exception when staying in Los Angeles, at Dharma Zen Center, and host interviews even though he was technically retired at the time. He always greeted me quite excitedly by saying, “Hello Great Abbot, how are you?” Once I performed prostrations he would ask me to take a seat and then he asked me if I had any questions. In my experience he allowed me to ask anything I wanted, he didn’t always answer the way I was hoping, and he engaged these questions freely. His love and kindness this way was always overflowing in the room. When it came to kongàns he was always to the point and would laugh out loud if I failed to come up with a good response.

Zen Master Ji Bong was the same way, although we would often work on sutras, or perhaps Zen Center business if necessary, as well as kongàns during our sessions. They were never limited to 10 minutes or less, and sometimes if some other individual required additional time he gave it to them freely.


I often wondered about the efficacy of the method I had experienced at Zen Centers outside of Kwan Um where students would run to the Teacher’s quarters and line up ringing a bell and then be asked to ‘present their kōan,' and the bell would ring if the answer was incorrect. The interviews were always short and directed at kōans only.

It occurred to me that in Monasteries in Asia when Teachers lived amongst their students, there was much more time for interaction. Some had said that it was because the monasteries in China were so large that it was necessary to have the encounter dialogues limited to a brief amount of time.

So let us examine the facts. In The Practice of Chinese Buddhism, 1900-1950 (Harvard East Asian) Paperback – January 1, 1967 by Holmes Welch, Pages 3 – 4 he discusses in depth the size of the Monasteries in China.


“The distinction between clerical elite and proletariat is based on statistical evidence. About 1930 there were, as just mentioned, approximately 500,000 monks in China living in about 100,000 temples. Thus most temples were small, with an average of five monks each. These small temples or hereditary temples (tzu-sun miao), as they were called, differed in operation and purpose from the large The People of the Monastery public monasteries (shih-fang sung-lin), some of which had four or five hundred monks in permanent residence.

I have collected more or less detailed information on about one hundred large public monasteries with an average of about 130 monks apiece. I would assume that there were twice as many again on which I do not have such information, but that in these others the average number of resident monks was 50-75. If this assumption is correct, then China in the Republican period had about three hundred large public monasteries, with 20,000 to 25,000 monks, or less than 5 percent of the sangha. As many as 95 percent were clerical proletariat living in hereditary temples.”


So, ninety five percent of the monks in China had lived in these “Hereditary Temples” and had a more open methodology to the practice. Fewer monks meant the more hats each person would wear.

In looking for a chán document referring to the method employed in China for interviews I discovered, The Origins of Buddhist Monastic Codes in China, An Annotated Translation, and Study of the Chànyuan qīngguī by Venerable Yifa. [Compiled in 1103 by the Chan Buddhist monk Changlu Zongze (? – 1107?), Chanyuan qinggui (Rules of Purity for the Chan Monastery) is regarded as the earliest Chan monastic code in existence.] This translation, that is the closest thing to Báizhàng’s Original Chàn Code of Ethics, has this to say regarding the meeting of the Teacher with the monks in the monastery.

“In some monasteries the entering monk and the abbot discuss the previous kōan, or they engage in conversation, or the monk asks for further instruction. Separate times are allocated for these three methods of inquiry. In other monasteries, any or all of the three methods are employed in one session.”

Many people can find fault with Zen Master Ji Bong or myself for spending too much time with students and claim we aren't following the correct precedent. And perhaps given the state of practice at Monasteries in Taiwan, Korea and Japan when the first wave of teachers came West, this might be a fair assumption.


Frankly, I am not concerned with what others do with their groups or centers, I only know that by spending time with students the way I do allows us to explore Buddhism in our lives and we come up with various ways of addressing the unique situations which exist in the various locations in the US and Mexico. We are, after all, a fledgling order trying to find a way into the hearts of North Americans.

This might not be the way others approach it, and by writing this I am not degrading anyone or any methodology, I am merely presenting an alternative that seems to work quite well in the 21st Century.

May all beings be liberated.