Chương 5: #
Shohaku wrote:
CUCKOO CALLING TODAY OF ALL DAYS WHEN NO ONE IS HERE.
Shohaku was meditating for many months on a koan: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Now, one hand clapping cannot make any sound. The very word clapping means two things are needed. Two hands can clap (THE MASTER CLAPS HIS HANDS), but one hand ... These are called koans. They are not puzzles that you can solve, they are unsolvable. You can dis-solve them, but you cannot solve them. Meditation dissolves them.
So for months he had been meditating, and every once in a while he would hear something -- a cool breeze passing through the pine trees making a subtle sound and music -- and he would think, "Perhaps this is it."
He would run to the master, but before he had uttered a word, the master would just close the door in his face and shout from inside, "Go back and meditate. This is not the sound!"
Shohaku would think, "What is the matter? I have not even said anything and he has refused already!"
But the master is right, because no answer can be right. There is no question, so whatever he brings is wrong, till he stops bringing. Many times the master would slap him. When he would say, "This is the sound I have heard: bamboos cracking," the master would say, "Go back."
And this day it happened!
CUCKOO CALLING ... At another time he may have run to the master saying to him, "It is the call of the cuckoo, the sound of the cuckoo."
But today it was different. CUCKOO CALLING TODAY OF ALL DAYS WHEN NO ONE IS HERE.
He has dissolved his mind, and with the mind the koan is dissolved. There is no question to be solved. He is no more here.
He did not run to the master, but the master in the middle of the night suddenly ran towards Shohaku, when the cuckoo was still calling. The master was waiting that he may come, but he has not come. That means he has dissolved the question.
The master reached to Shohaku, who was sitting silently, and the cuckoo was still calling ... and Shohaku was so silent and so peaceful, surrounded by such serenity.
The master shook him. Shohaku opened his eyes, didn't say a single word, just touched the feet of the master.
The master said, "So you have heard! Come on, now you can stay with me in my cottage.
I have been looking towards you with great hope. All those slaps -- you know I am old and it hurts my hand more than your face. All those beatings ... and you don't understand that my hand hurts the whole night! You are young. I am in a hurry. My death is very close. Before my death I wanted ...
"You have dissolved the koan, the sound of one hand clapping. Today it happened of all days: the cuckoo is calling ... but now I can see you are no more there. Your mind is silent, your ego is gone. A peace, a great peace, a tremendous transformation from mind to no-mind has happened. I declare you my successor."
Shohaku's master died the next day. He was hanging around just hoping and waiting and hitting hard for Shohaku to understand. He had many disciples, but Shohaku was the most promising because he had taken every hit with great gratitude, bowing down, touching his feet, with never a single resentment, never anger, never a feeling of humiliation, never a feeling of frustration that "For months together I have been coming and coming and coming and he goes on rejecting. Even though he does not hear my answer, already he rejects it before I have opened my mouth. Now I know, no answer was going to be the answer. Only no-mind could be the answer. No-mind is the sound of one hand clapping."
CUCKOO CALLING
TODAY OF ALL DAYS
WHEN NO ONE IS HERE.
A beautiful, very beautiful haiku to remember.
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