Gateless Gate, Case 36: Meeting a Person of the Way
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“If you meet a person of the Way on the way, greet them with neither words nor with silence. Now tell me, how will you greet them?”
In this talk, Zuisei speaks on a koan that helps us to reflect on how we regard and interact with others on the path. She asks: If we do not greet one another with words nor with silence, what is the ground that we meet each other on?
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
This transcript is based on Zuisei’s notes and might differ slightly from the final talk.
Main Case
Wuzu said, “If you meet a person of the Way on the way, greet them neither with words nor with silence. Now tell me, how will you greet them?”
Commentary
If you can give an apt answer to this question, it certainly is a matter for congratulation. If you are not yet able to give one, be alert in every aspect of your life.
Verse
If you meet a person of the Way on the way,
Greet them neither with words nor with silence.
A punch in the jaw—
Get it at once, get it immediately!
Good morning and welcome to those of you who are visiting the Monastery for the first time. Yesterday a group of us did a retreat on Silence and the Spiritual Path. I wanted to use this koan to explore the subject of silence a little further—to try to get to its root, its very nature. And more importantly, to see how we can use it to meet one another skillfully.
I said yesterday at the outset that I was well aware of the awkwardness of talking about silence. When you talk about it, you break it. It cannot be spoken of, only experienced. It’s not unlike the conundrum of giving a talk on the dharma where you are essentially trying to bring out, point to, what cannot be spoken of, what cannot be captured, or framed with words. But, isn’t this what artists do—try to capture reality with words, with a brush, a piece of clay or wood? Trying to give life to something that doesn’t need our help to come alive because it’s never anything but alive and vibrant and perfectly expressing itself. We know, yet deliberately offend, to borrow a phrase from another koan.
In the case of a talk such as this, we take a few words, put them together— hopefully in a somewhat skillful fashion—to try to convey the inexpressible. But better to do as Thich Nhat Han did in the 1980s when he gave a talk at the cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.
The place was packed and buzzing as only waiting audiences can buzz. They had heard of this great master, who by now had been in the US for twenty years. He had been teaching at places like Princeton and Columbia. He could fluently speak seven languages, and had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. King. Here he was giving a talk on Zen and meditation, so they were a little excited, to say the least.
After a while, Thay came in and he simply took his seat. No one announced him or introduced him or anything. He just came in and sat down, quietly, simply. A few people in the audience noticed and got quiet. Most kept on talking, chatting, waiting for the program to begin. But slowly, very slowly, a hush began to spread from the front of the room to the back. People began to notice that something was happening. There was a presence in the room. A tiny presence in that huge vault that is St. John’s. A tiny presence that somehow filled every last molecule of the room with its being. It was Thay, just sitting in silence, being silence itself.
Ten minutes went by, and by then the audience had become quiet and they too were sitting, but there was a difference. They were waiting. They were waiting for something to happen, for someone to tell them, now, this is it. This is important, so pay attention. Thay wasn’t waiting. He was just sitting—2500 years worth of Buddhist thought and teaching are contained in that word just. After 20 minutes he got up, and without a word, walked out of the room. That was his talk…
Wuzu Fayan was an 11th and 12th century Chinese master. He eventually became the teacher of Yuanwu, who edited the Blue Cliff Record. He’s the same master in the koan a Buffalo passes through a window that Roshi spoke about some weeks back. Also os Senjo and her Soul are separated.
It’s said that when Wuzu was a young monk he was studying Buddhist philosophy, and one day a fellow student challenged their teacher. He said, “If subject and object are one, how can that fact be realized?” A very good question, if you stop to think about it. How can I realize a koan, or my breath if I become it? The moment I realize I am one with it, there is no longer any me to do the realizing. So how does this work? It’s like when people ask, how will I know if I’m in samadhi? You won’t, that’s the whole point—to drop the knower. Well, but then how do you know if you’re practicing correctly? That too, is an excellent question…
So the student asked, “If subject and object are one, how can that fact be realized?” The teacher responded, “It is like drinking water and knowing personally whether it is warm or cold.” And Wuzu said to himself, “I know about warm or cold, but I don’t know about personally.”
Put yourself in his place for a moment. He’s probably drunk hundreds, thousands of glasses of water. He knows he understands the difference between warm and cold. He can probably eloquently describe that difference to you, maybe even write a beautiful poem about it. But this word personally—that’s another story. I don’t know what the word in Chinese was, maybe it was personally. Maybe it was intimately. Either way, he’s not content with a superficial understanding. He didn’t start nodding the moment the teacher answered and think, “Of course, it’s like knowing the difference between warm and cold, personally.” It is not obvious to him, it is not a given. So he goes searching, until eventually, he realizes himself. Then he spends the rest of his life trying to communicate to others what he has seen.
I want to personally realize male or female, black or white, young or old. I want to personally realize words and silence and neither words nor silence. Nowadays practitioners know so much about Buddhism and can speak eloquently about the teachings. The challenge is to move beyond our knowing, so we can realize personally. So I can understand who I am and who you are and what this is. So I can move with you, not against you. This is so difficult, and so necessary, if we are going to live in harmony with one another. If we are going to do what the Buddha said is possible to do—to put an end to suffering. That’s why koans are such an invaluable practice. Why they are so unique and potentially such powerful spiritual tools. They may seem archaic and they certainly come with their share of cultural and social baggage. So, like any other tool, they are not perfect. Yet they are deliberate, relentless training in learning to get out of your own way so you can inhabit another’s being, another’s mind, another’s understanding. So you can know them personally and know, that fundamentally, we share the same ground, that we live and die together. We say, we each die alone. Yes, except this aloneness includes everyone.
In this koan, Wuzu, having gone through his own search and become a teacher in his own right, poses a question to his students: “Meeting a person of the Way, don’t use words and don’t use silence. How will you greet them?”
Well, first of all, who’s a person of the Way? The Way, or the Tao, is a path, a road. It’s also the natural order of the universe. A person of Tao, a person of the Way, is one who understands this natural order and who lives in accord with it. So how do you greet such a person? And is that different from how you greet an ordinary person? How broad or narrow is that road you are both on? Does a person of the Way look a certain way, act a certain way?
Every day, all the many beings we meet on the way are kind enough to teach us. Can we hear their teaching? Or do we save our attention, our regard, for the person with the mic? The one we expect will teach us? What if we are open to being taught by everyone and everything? Every day, several times a day, we meet one another, and sometimes, that meeting does not go well. You say something, and the other person is hurt, and they tell you so. Now you feel ashamed, or put on the spot, or defensive. “But I didn’t mean it that way,” you say. “No, I know,” says the other person, “But this is how I heard it. And it hurt. And this is why.” Can you hear that?
What if this koan said–it would be a different koan, but bear with me—What if it said, “You meet a person of the Way on the way. Without intending to, you hurt them. Don’t defend yourself. Don’t shut down. Now, how will you respond?”
As the commentary says, “If you can give an apt answer to this question, it certainly is a matter for congratulation. If you are not yet able to give one, be alert in every aspect of your life.” Be alert in every aspect of your life. Know that the answer is not in words, it’s not in silence. It’s not in fighting, it’s not in avoiding. It’s not in asserting, it’s not in deferring. Then where is it? What is it? And despite what the verse says, it is not in a punch in the jaw either. That is one way to realize it, but frankly, we need other ways. We have lots of practice on punching each other on the jaw, so to speak. We know how to defend and protect, or deflect and avoid. This koan demands more of us. Life demands more of us. How will we meet it?
Wuzu took this koan from a poem that says:
Clear, lucid, and no hindrance whatsoever;
Standing all by yourself, you do not rely on anything.
If you meet a person of the Way on the way,
Greet them neither with words nor with silence.
Standing all by yourself, you do not rely on anything. And because you do not rely on anything, you are clear, lucid, without hindrance. Standing all by yourself as you meet another, you greet them perfectly. And your greeting falls into neither words nor silence.
These masters are doing their utmost to describe a real state of being. They’re saying, this is you, but you have to realize it.
Once a learned scholar was traveling and he decided to debate a renowned teacher, an expert on debate. But in order to warm up a bit before doing so, he asked if there were any monks around who knew enough philosophy. Someone told him about Patrul Rinpoche, who was living in a hut in the forest. Patrul Rinpoche was one of the most revered teachers in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. He lived his life roaming, living in caves and simple huts, and teaching anyone who came to him. He studied with all the great teachers of his time, and was said to have deep realization.
The scholar made his way to Patrul’s hut, who had been warned by his attendant that someone was coming to debate with him. Just before the scholar arrived, Patrul took his sheepskin coat, turned it inside out, and put it on so that the fur was on the outside. Then he lay down with his head at the foot of his bed. The scholar knocked on the door, but Patrul didn’t answer. Several times the scholar knocked without getting a response. Finally he slowly opened the door and peeked inside. He saw the master lying in bed with his feet near the headboard and his sheepskin coat inside out. So he asked him, “Rinpoche, why are you lying that way? Can’t you tell the head of a bed from the foot?” And Rinpoche said, “Dear lama, you’re not very good at logic. The head of my bed is where my head is. The foot of the bed is where I place my feet.” Rattled, the scholar said, “But why are you wearing your coat inside out? That’s odd.” Patrul shrugged and said, “I’m wearing the fur on the outside and the skin on the inside—exactly the same way the sheep do!” After this spicy start, they talked at length about the dharma, and Patrul Rinpoche responded with ease and depth. Then the scholar decided that if this had been his warm-up, he probably wasn’t ready to debate the other great master, so he gave up and went home.
Patrul Rinpoche also taught that every day we have Three Opportunities to practice:
The first opportunity is at waking. He said, “Don’t get up in a rush. Take a moment to lie still in bed and relax your mind. Look within and check your intent.” The second opportunity is on the way to the teachings. For us, that would be those moments in which we’re getting ready before a talk, a mondo, a retreat. We’re getting settled in our chairs, sipping tea. Or we’re settling on our cushions, and here we don’t let that opportunity pass by. We clearly and loudly say, “Prepare for dharma talk, dharma discourse.” When the abbot is here we hit the drum. Are you awake, are you silent, are you listening? Where is your mind? Patrul Rinpoche said, this is our opportunity to cultivate bodhicitta—the wish to awaken and to save all beings from suffering. The third opportunity is as we’re receiving the teachings themselves. We once again reestablish our intent and commitment for practice. And he had an invocation for this, he’d say:
Every instant, put your heart into it again.
Each moment, remind yourself again.
Each second, check yourself again.
Night and day, make your resolve again.
In the morning, commit yourself again.
Each meditation session, examine mind minutely.
Never be apart from dharma, not even accidentally.
Continually, do not forget.
Silence allows us to see that we’re coming home to a place we never really left. We so often act like guests in our own home, guests who, unfamiliar with the terrain, keep bumping into the furniture. Except we put it there, it’s our place we’re crashing. But without some degree of silence, we will not know this, without stillness, we will forget. That is why we keep reminding ourselves and reminding ourselves—putting our hearts into it, even when we don’t want to. Especially when we don’t want to, if what we really want is to wake up.
At the very moment in which you and another person of the Way have a misunderstanding, in the moment in which you meet a person of the Way in your mind, on your cushion, in that moment, remind yourself, commit again, examine minutely. In that moment, don’t be bashful. Remind yourself, I’m a person of the Way on the way. How do I respond?
Let me close with the end of a Neruda poem I used yesterday. It’s called, “Keeping Quiet.”
If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.
What if we shift our single-mindedness, just for a little while, to keeping still and quiet? Could it be that this great silence would interrupt our sadness? Our not understanding ourselves and one another? Could it be that the earth can teach us in its silence and its thundering voice how to joyfully observe and care for it—not just today, Earth Day, but every day? Could it be that we already know how to meet one another, but we must have the courage and the determination do so?
Now, meeting you, people of the Way, let us all keep quiet together and then we’ll go.
Explore further
01 : The Barrier That Has No Gate (pdf) by Chán Master Wúmén Huìkāi
02 : Patrul Rinpoche
03 : Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda
04 : Gateless Gate, Case 26: Two Monks Roll Up the Blinds with Vanessa Zuisei Goddard