CASE 80. Jôshû s Newborn Baby. Case: Verse :

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1 CASE 80 Jôshû s Newborn Baby By Yamada Kôun Case: A monk asked Jôshû, Does a newborn baby have the sixth consciousness or not? Jôshû said, Bouncing a ball upon swift waters. The monk also asked Tôsu, What does bouncing a ball upon swift waters mean? Tôsu said, Thought by thought, the flow never stops. Verse : The sixth consciousness is devoid of trying he poses a question. The Zen adepts both knew where he was coming from. Bouncing a ball upon busy swift waters. Where it falls it doesn t stop, who can see it? This koan is also lacking an Instruction. In this Hekiganshû Dokugo (Soliloquy on the Blue Cliff Record) Yasutani Roshi supplies his own words of advice when an Instruction is lacking for a koan. Let us look at what he has to say for this case: Jôshû evidently came to kensho at the age of eighteen. His own teacher, Nansen, was also only eighteen when he broke down the residence [haka-santaku]. To break down the residence is a stock Zen expression with the same meaning as body and mind fallen away. Your house has gone bankrupt. That is to say, the body has completely disappeared. It is said that Seppô had eighteen great enlightenments. That must be said to be an unusual number. It is also said that Hakuin Zenji had thirteen great enlightenments and countless lesser experiences. But wait a minute! People like Gensha, the Sixth Patriarch or Yôka Daishi all came to great enlightenment in a single experience. I had never heard of the tradition of Seppô s eighteen great enlightenments, but it is fairly well-known that Hakuin Zenji had the experiences which Yasutani Roshi speaks of. According to Iida Tôin Roshi, to say that there were eighteen great enlightenments and maintain that the last of those experiences was a true kensho would mean that the experiences preceding it could not have been great enlightenment. I tend to agree. If there were a succession of experiences 1

2 leading up to the final great breakthrough, they must have been slight ones with a lot of conceptual understanding mixed in. Great enlightenment [daigo] is a single experience where everything becomes completely clear. Gensha Suibi Daishi and the Sixth Patriarch Enô came to great enlightenment in a single experience. If we examine the Shôdôka (Song Upon Attaining the Way) by Yôka Daishi, we can appreciate him for the truly outstanding Zen personage that he was. Of course, this is totally different from the unclear kensho experiences which are so common today. The world is filled today with people who have had trifling experiences and put on airs of knowing all about Buddhism. We should pay particular heed to Yasutani Roshi on this point. It is as if they were straining to see through thick clouds and wondering if that might possibly be the moon on the other side. If anyone said anything to the contrary, they would already be scratching their heads and doubting their own perception. We should be truly grateful for a Zen master who will deprive us of our cherished illusions at such a time. The process of working on koans after kensho is the process of checking carefully on the extent to which one realizes, all the while bringing Dharma causes to maturity and gradually leading the student to true understanding. Lately there are all too many people who never get to this final stage of true understanding. Rather than the fault of the student, the error lies here with the Zen master whose responsibility is very grave. I have heard the same thing said by a monk in the Rinzai Sect. The first barrier---the initial kensho experience---is very important and it must be a clear, unmistakable experience. For most people, it s a matter of just taking the slightest glimpse at that world. Yasutani Roshi uses the smile of looking through thick clouds and guessing the moon is on the other side to characterize today s kensho experiences. I often use the example of being in a dark room to explain the process of clarification in Zen practice. Please refer to that explanation in the former case. Look at a newborn baby. There is neither belief nor disbelief. There is neither philosophy nor the trappings of learning. It is for this reason that we are told to be as little children. This does not mean we have to become amnesiacs. Just do away with your concepts. A baby has no memory of experiences from former lives and the experiences of this life have yet to begin. It is very much like the person who has come to great enlightenment and rid himself of all delusions. We can take it here as meaning a Buddha. Ardor in practice and fretful impatience are totally different things. We are told not to be in a fever of impatience. Throw all that away and practice with the ardor of a single bright flame. This, too, is an important caution. People who have been doing their best throughout the session are very apt to start fretting as the sesshin draws to a close about whether they will reach the goal or not. Those who have determined to reach the goal during this sesshin come hell or high water are apt to become fretfully impatient, fearing that they will not accomplish what they set out to do. Throw away all such thoughts of success or failure, and become a 2

3 single flame of concentrated practice. Today s koan deals with the consciousness of a newborn infant. In Japanese, we use the word kokoro [heart-mind] when speaking of consciousness. This is actually a very big question, although we usually don t give it a second thought in the course of our everyday lives. Buddhism includes the branch of philosophy dealing with the extremely complex Yuishiki-ron (Doctrine of Consciousness Only). Buddhist psychology differs from modern-day psychology in not taking an experimental approach. It is rather entering deeply into the world of enlightenment, into the inmost recesses of the heart and making various observations in systematizing a doctrine. The Yuishiki-ron is perhaps more philosophical than psychological in its approach to examining the human consciousness. But this does not imply that it is mere intellectualizing. It is concerned with practicing zazen, coming to a true experience and then examining for yourself the world of satori to construct a doctrine of enlightenment. That is the reason why it is so difficult and complex. In grasping the mind or the true self, we eventually have to deal with the question of consciousness. For the most part, we have no idea where consciousness comes from or why it exists. It s easy enough to say that God created it, but none of us were around when that happened. The Bible tells us that the first thing to be created was light. Whether light and life are the same thing or not would be the subject of heated discussion, but we don t really know. There is nothing we can do but believe. We believe because we have never seen the true fact. Zen is the process of tirelessly searching until we see that which we could not see. It is perhaps similar to the sciences from the standpoint of this tireless search. But even scientists are stumped when it comes to this. I believe it was Immanuel Kant who spoke about the thing in itself [das Ding an sich]. We may think we know what something is, but we do not really know the essence of the thing itself. The natural sciences are ceaselessly searching in the realm of the unknown. We, too, know nothing of the true nature of the mind. We can only remain in blank amazement at how such a thing came into being. Emperor Bu of Ryô asked Bodhidharma, Who is it that stands before me? Bodhidharma replied, I don t know. It is this difficult problem of consciousness which Jôshû and Tôsu handle in a Zen manner, in a manner quite different from the approach of the philosopher or the scientists. And this is what we are to savor in today s koan. On the Case: A monk asked Jôshû, Does a newborn baby have the sixth consciousness or not? Jôshû said, Bouncing a ball upon swift waters. Let me make a brief summary of this complex question of consciousness. The six senses are sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and idea. The eyes see color and form. The ears hear sounds. The nose smells odors and the tongue tastes. The body (or the skin) also has feeling. The sixth sense of idea [i] also means consciousness and is the process whereby we take the information given by the other senses and are conscious that this is a color or that is a sound, etc. It also includes the movements of the mind in like or dislike. The first five senses come from the body, but 3

4 idea comes from the heart-mind. These are the six consciousnesses [rokushiki] which include the first five having to do with the body and the last having to do with the mind. The sixth consciousness of discernment is our everyday mind. In Buddhist psychology, the next or seventh consciousness is known as the Mana consciousness. This is the unending consciousness of a self. It is also known as kôshishiriyô-shiki or the consciousness which constantly judges and considers. The consciousness of a separate ego emerges from this. The next class of consciousness is the Alaya or storehouse consciousness, also known as ganzôshiki in Japanese. This is the consciousness which stores up all accumulated experience. The first five classes of consciousness are discerned by the sixth consciousness, and the seventh consciousness (the constant awareness of an individual self) transfers these experiences to the eighth consciousness for storage, much like a mail transfer system. The forms of consciousness which disappear when we die are the ones numbering up to the sixth. The seventh and eight forms of consciousness remain and never die. Thus, although a child knows nothing at birth, it still has, according to Buddhist psychology, all the experiences from past lives stored away in the eighth consciousness. For example, the question of why genius occurs in certain individuals is one which has challenged modern-day psychologists but which resists solution. From the standpoint of Buddhist psychology, however, there is no problem at all. For when all the experiences and struggles stored in the eighth consciousness are produced it is perfectly possible that a genius will result from this. But what about satori? Satori is the act of cutting through the eighth consciousness and reaching the ninth consciousness. This is known as Amala consciousness (spotless consciousness) and is totally empty. The seventh, eighth and ninth forms of consciousness are alike in being invisible, and all of us are one from the standpoint of those forms of consciousness. On the surface we may appear as separate existences, but when we arrive at these consciousnesses we are alike in our common root of total emptiness. Take the example of a bamboo plant. Many shoots emerge from the single plant, but further down they are all part of the same single root. It s actually more complex than that, but I have attempted here to give a rough overview of this question of consciousness. In today s koan, a monk uses the example of the consciousness of a new-born baby to question Jôshû on this. A monk once came to Jôshû and asked him if a newborn baby has the sixth consciousness or not. Jôshû did not chop any logic in replying; he gave the monk the straight facts. Bouncing a ball on swift waters. In the above-quoted Hekiganshû Dokugo (Soliloquy on the Blue Cliff Record) Yasutani Roshi concludes that the swift waters must be a mighty river rushing by with great force. He also says that the universe itself is a great stream surging on with great speed, and it is upon this great stream of the universe that we bounce the ball of consciousness. I myself find this a bit hard to accept as is. An experience which I had in early childhood has perhaps conditioned my response to the words in the koan. Let me tell you about it. In the house of my birthplace in the Japanese countryside, my family had a silk mill for the production of raw silk. Although there 4

5 was electric power at that time, there were still no electric power lines for industrial purposes. My family had their own small electrical generator run by water power from a stream. This involved bringing the water to a certain height and having it flow down a slope to produce electricity. Since the water came down at an angle, when it was let through it came down with a rush. But strangely enough, there was not a ripple on the surface. When I first read this koan, the first image which came to mind was that of bouncing a ball on the swift but perfectly quiet current at the old silk mill. Yasutani Roshi s image of a mighty river is thus a little hard for me to imagine as applying in this case. However, if we read further in Yasutani Roshi s teisho, he himself says: Although I speak in terms of a mighty river flowing by, in fact it is a swift stream which is at the same time completely calm and silent. Such an image I can understand. What, then, is the swift stream? This is our own consciousness. We cannot see our own consciousness but it is there just the same, and it is continuously active. It has unlimited capabilities while being totally empty. When I speak and when you listen, this is no other than the great activity of nothingness. There is nothing at all to see or perceive. Although it cannot be grasped by our five senses, our consciousness is engaged continuously in great activity. I also feel it is right to go on and call this life itself. A newborn baby s consciousness is just like a ball bouncing on this swift current. Listen to a newborn infant crying. Wah-wah-wah! That is the ball. Each wah! is complete in itself. It is not a single ball flowing down the stream. There is this ball and then the next ball and the next and the next, each one separate and independent. And although they are separate and independent they are at the same time one. It is one consciousness and one stream. We, too, are the same way. When we are hungry we are conscious of it. This is a consciousness which emerges out of nowhere. If a ball is bounced upon it, it emerges. There are also consciousnesses which emerge even if a ball is not bounced. For example, when you remember the past and think back on an unpleasant time, this is also bouncing the ball on the stream of consciousness. As another example, think of a group of electric lights going on one by one. Although they may appear to be separate and distinct, it is actually the same electric current passing through all of them. In this sense, they are the same. The current is what they have in common and the individual lights are the aspect which makes them separate. This is the ball in today s koan. Switch off the switch and they all go off. Switch it on again and they all flash on. This is bouncing the ball. In mathematics there is the term the discontinuity of continuity, the continuity of discontinuity. It is this aspect of total separateness in the midst of connectedness which Yasutani Roshi is pointing to when he talks of each bounce of the ball as being separate unto itself at the same time that the flow of the stream is completely calm and silent. When the newborn baby cries, each Wah! is independent, but the fact that each emerges from the same consciousness makes it the same as the individual lights which have the same electric current running through them. This, at least, is now I would like to take these words from the koan. Once again, perhaps the mathematical term the discontinuity of continuity is the best way to express this. 5

6 The monk also asked Tôsu, What does bouncing a ball upon swift waters mean? Tôsu said, Thought by thought, the flow never stops. The monk then went to question Tôsu Gisei Zenji, another outstanding Zen patriarch. He related to Tôsu how he had asked Jôshû about the consciousness of a newborn baby and how Jôshû had answered that this was like bouncing a ball on a swift current. What did he mean by that? the monk wanted to know. He still did not understand. In reply Tôsu said, Thought by thought, the flow never stops. What does Tôsu mean with his reply? Actually, he s saying the same thing as Jôshû with different words. Thought by thought means happy, sad, the whole gamut of feelings, emotions and thoughts. Each of them is separate and distinct. When we are happy, we are just happy. When we are sad, we are just sad. When we are happy, there is no room for sadness in that instant. The entire universe is just happy. And the same goes for when we are sad. They appear to be completely separate and distinct, but the flow never stops. Actually, there is no flow; it never changes. When we speak about being happy this moment and sad the next, it might seem as though there is constant change, but essentially there is no change whatsoever. This final part of the koan about the current never stopping concentrates on the aspect of the water. Although you bounce a ball upon the surface and each bounce is separate, the swift water remains forever a continuum. The individual consciousnesses appear, but there is something which is common to them all which never changes. Once again, I wish to refer to this as the continuity of discontinuity. The aspect of discontinuity is the individual thoughts or feelings (each one separate and distinct). The aspect of continuity is the swift current of consciousness. To complete our intellectual explanation, Jôshû s reply is saying that the swift stream is continuity and bouncing the ball is discontinuity, thus giving the discontinuity of continuity. Tôsu s reply is speaking of the continuity of discontinuity. Engo, in his commentary to this koan, has something interesting to say about the question of whether a newborn baby has the sixth consciousness or not: Although a newborn baby is equipped with the sixth consciousness, though his eyes can see and his ears can hear, he doesn t yet discriminate among the six sense-objects. At this time he knows nothing of good and evil, long and short, right and wrong, or gain and loss. 1 A newborn baby is endowed with the sixth consciousness. How do we know? Because she cries when she s hungry. And when mother gives her the breast, she knows that milk is coming. This is consciousness. A newborn baby isn t a robot. Although they may seem to be similar, they are completely different when it comes to having consciousness or not. The sense objects [jpn.: rokujin, literally: the six dusts] are that which the senses respond to. For the sense of sight, it is color and form. For the ears, it is sound, for the nose, odors. For the tongue it is different tastes. And for the skin it is the particular texture or feel of a surface. With a newborn infant, even when she sees color, there is no consciousness of seeing it as color. Even though she hears the sounds like we do, she cannot yet distinguish and 1 Translation by T. Cleary. 6

7 recognize that as piano or violin. Thus, as Engo says, there is no like or dislike, long or short, good or bad, gain or loss. This is referred to in the verse as mukôyô which means something like completely natural and just as it is. There is just taking in without the slightest trace of planning or trying. This is the state of the newborn baby. A person who studies the Path must become again like an infant. Then praise and blame, success and fame, unfavorable circumstances and favorable environments---none of these can move him. Though his eyes see form, he is the same as a blind man; though his ears hear sound, he is the same as a deaf man. He is like a fool, like an idiot---his mind is motionless as Mt. Sumeru. 2 This would be the same as the Buddha himself. The Buddha has often been compared to a baby. For when a baby is born there is no sin. But as it grows older and begins to use its intellect, it becomes capable of dong something bad. On the Verse: The sixth consciousness is devoid of trying he poses a question. In the true sixth consciousness there is no seeking or trying of any sort. Just as it is is fine. When you see there is just seeing. When you hear, there is just hearing. The Zen adepts both knew where he was coming from. The monk was asking about the great question of the sixth consciousness. And the two Zen adepts, in this case Jôshû and Tôsu, immediately discerned what was going on in the monk s mind, they saw through his question immediately and gave an immediate answer. Jôshû answered, Bouncing a ball upon a swift current. And Tôsu answered, Thought by thought, the flow never stops, thus giving a simple and appropriate reply to the monk s question. If this were an answer from a Buddhist scholar or expert on Buddhist psychology, he would probably be unable to give an appropriate answer even in a book on the subject. Bouncing a ball upon busy swift waters. The next line of the poem is a paraphrase of Jôshû s reply. But it is also the same as Tôsu s answer of Thought by thought, the flow never stops. As I mentioned before, Jôshû was speaking in terms of the discontinuity of continuity while Tôsu was speaking of the continuity of discontinuity. But in the end, they are speaking about the same thing. Where it falls it doesn t stop, who can see it? The final line of the poem is concentrating on Tôsu s reply and saying that there is no end to this ceaseless motion. We do not know where it comes to rest. We do not know where our consciousness will eventually take up lodgings. No matter how hard we strain our eyes we cannot see it. As Yasutani Roshi says, If you could see it, it wouldn t be the Buddha. It can t be seen by ordinary beings or Buddhas. Our consciousness cannot be grasped by anyone, no matter how hard they look. Why? Because it is totally empty. But it is empty while at the same time containing infinite capabilities. This is compared here in the Verse to a swift-flowing current. But none of us has ever discerned the nature of this to be able to point to it. In his teisho, Yasutani Roshi concludes by saying, Well, that s enough. Just sit with 2 Translation by T. Cleary. 7

8 all that s in you. Sit your very hardest! No matter how much I try to explain it, it s not going to lead to your realizing. This is where I, too, must shut my mouth. 8