Mumonkan Case 9 — Daitsu Chishō: The Non-Attained Buddha | Zen Teishō

Most of the time, because we feel something doesn’t line up, life seems hard. We feel reactive, always on our heels. We get caught in patterns we don’t like. We suffer. We watch others suffer. And we assume something major must be missing.

So we practice.

We sit. We study. We go to dokusan. We work on koans—and koans work on us. Over time we begin to notice some reshaping. We may become a little calmer, hopefully a little wiser, perhaps a little freer.

But quietly, often unspoken, there’s an assumption driving the whole thing. If we just practice long enough, if we purify ourselves enough, if something finally clicks, then everything will change. Something will finally arrive. And then we’ll be in that rainbow Buddha land.

This becomes the real practical problem of what we call practice.

We experience life as effort moving toward a result, a teleological arrow pointing in a direction. We imagine awakening as something produced over time. And we measure ourselves—sometimes graciously, but more often harshly—against how far we think we’ve come.

There’s a case in the Mumonkan, the ninth case, called Daitsu Chishō. It opens with a monk earnestly asking Priest Jō of Kōyō:

Daitsu Chishō Buddha sat in the meditation hall for ten kalpas,
but the Dharma of the Buddha did not manifest itself
and he could not attain Buddhahood.
Why was this?
Jō replied, “Your question is reasonable indeed.”
The monk said, “He sat in zazen in the meditation hall. Why did he not attain Buddhahood?”
Jō replied, “Because he is a non-attained Buddha.”

On the surface, this sounds like a strange story about a Buddha who practiced for an impossibly long time and somehow failed—except, of course, he’s called a Buddha. Ten kalpas is essentially forever.

One sutra says a kalpa is the time it would take an angel brushing a mountain with a feather once every hundred years to wear it flat. Another says it’s the time it would take a bird to empty a mountain of sesame seeds by eating one seed every hundred years. So you get the point. Ten kalpas is not a long retreat. Ten kalpas is not how long it takes me to get through the Mumonkan. Ten kalpas is well beyond time itself.

So what is the monk really asking?

He’s asking, how could someone practice forever and still not be awakened? Why is this taking so long? Why am I not getting there? Why don’t the conditions of my life line up with how I think they should if I were awakened?

Notice Jō’s first reply. Most translations render it politely, like, “Yes, that’s a fair question.” But it doesn’t really sound that way when you hear it with awakened ears. It sounds more like, That’s a question all right.

It’s reasonable not because it’s logical, but because it reveals exactly where the monk is standing. It’s the kind of question you ask when you’re inside a picture of reality where awakening is a result, practice is the cause, and time produces enlightenment.

From inside that picture, the monk’s confusion makes perfect sense. Of course ten kalpas should be enough. Of course infinite effort should produce Buddhahood.

So Jō doesn’t correct the amount of time. He doesn’t say, “Well, maybe he needed eleven kalpas.” He steps completely outside the entire framework.

“He is a non-attained Buddha.”

That phrase flips everything.

This is not a Buddha who failed. This is a Buddha who is non-attained. In other words, the problem is the assumption that Buddhahood is something that can be attained at all.

The name Daitsu Chishō already tells us this. Daitsu means pervading everywhere. Chishō means wisdom. It’s not really describing a person in the ordinary sense. It’s describing a nature—the true nature of reality itself. A wisdom that pervades the entire universe and yet is fully present right here, right now.

Just like Amitābha means limitless life and limitless light. Just like Kannon means the mercy that hears the cries of the world. These aren’t characters in a story. They’re descriptions of what this already is.

So when the monk asks why Daitsu Chishō didn’t attain Buddhahood, he’s really asking: why didn’t reality become what it already is? Why didn’t completeness complete itself? Why didn’t water become water? Why didn’t gold become gold?

And Jō’s answer cuts straight through it. Nothing was missing in the first place. Nothing needed to be added.

From the essential point of view, Buddhahood is not produced by effort or time—although all of you should put your whole hearts into practice for the rest of your lives. Because it’s already functioning as this very life.

Sometimes it’s standing. Sometimes it’s walking. Sometimes it’s breathing. Sometimes it’s drilling holes in a concrete slab. It’s always vital in that way.

This is it.

Yamada Rōshi used to say, hit your thigh with your fist and you’ll say “ouch.” And then he’d ask, who answered? You didn’t think about it. You didn’t attain it. Reality responded as itself.

I’d add: touch a hot pan and I promise you’ll get your answer. And if you’re still confused, piss in the wind—it will become very clear very fast. Life is already responding completely and thoroughly all the time.

This is what the monk keeps missing. And of course, we all know this vantage point, because we’ve stood there ourselves—imagining awakening as something that happens later. I’ll be okay when.

Jō reveals: it was as it was, it is as it is, and it has never been absent.

Once you step back far enough, the whole structure—the entire way of thinking in terms of this versus that—begins to collapse. Questions and answers stop making sense. You begin to see that context is everything.

And the context is your life.

Your life forcing itself into the cracks of your well-reasoned dream world. The Dharmakāya presenting itself as your work, as your partner, as your children, as your parents, unfolding in time.

This is the non-attained Buddha. This is enlightenment that has always been present. You don’t have to make it appear. You just have to let go of how you think it should look.

And then it manifests itself right in front of you.