Is There Someone Who Does Not Get Sick?
“You extend your hands to the sky and chase after echoes, exhausting mind and body. Wake up from the dream and realize it was not. In the end, what is there to do?”
This summer we are studying a portion of the The Sutra That Explains the Profound Meaning. Our Sunday group practice sessions will focus on this wonderful teaching, a concise summary of the Mahayana. In addition, we will be complementing that study by highlighting important aspects of this sutra here in our Ghost posts. We will also bring in koans from time to time, in order to demonstrate how the koan tradition claps along in rhythm with the sutra tradition.
We begin with this koan:
Deshan said, “There is.”
The monk said, “Who does not get sick?”
Deshan said, “Ouch! Ouch!”
Deshan continued, “You extend your hands to the sky and chase after echoes, exhausting mind and body. Wake up from the dream and realize it was not. In the end, what is there to do?”
Once Deshan was done speaking, he sat peacefully and died.
Everybody knows that everybody gets sick, right? So where is Great Master Deshan (782-865) coming from that he would say that there is someone who does not get sick?
As for context, this Deshan is Deshan Xuanjian, a Zen master famous for offering no allowance for delusion and instead bringing practitioners to sudden awakening through shouts and blows. Wansong (1166–1246) says this of Deshan:
"Deshan would strike the wind and beat the rain, scolding Buddhas, reviling ancestors."
Along with the likes of Linji (died, 866), Dongshan (807-869), and Yangshan (803-887), Deshan was among the powerful and seminal eleventh-generation of Zen masters in China. Due to Deshan's ruthless methods, it is often thought that he was in the Linji succession, but no. Deshan's master was Longtan (no dates) in the Shitou (700-790) line.
A great master like Deshan, striking the rain and beating the wind, would certainly abide without contrivance with this Zen aphorism:
Now, in fairness to Deshan and allowing him full-play, Wansong quotes him as saying,
“The one great tripitaka [i.e., all the Buddhist teaching] is written on dirty butt-wiping paper.”
Indeed, all the great dharma teachings are all about intimacy with those dark and stinky places that cannot be seen and yet affect us profoundly. And to move the matter even further, we expect that the very next time Deshan used the latrine after uttering the above, he made a great demonstration of neither depending on nor departing from such dirty butt-wiping paper.
Look! There goes the one great tripitika!
Nevertheless, regarding whether there is a person who does not get sick, what is the teaching of the Buddhas that we are to neither depend on nor depart from? Understanding this point—neither depending on it nor departing from it—will sharpen our focus for turning freely in the turning point of a koan like this, so without further bowel movement references, let's get to it.