Stop Trying to Understand, and See | Shōyōroku Case 80: Ryuge Passes the Chin Rest

A lot of our lives are spent in a quest for meaning—trying to figure out what it's all about. I remember in my very early practice, I came to the Zen Center because I studied philosophy, and I thought, well, maybe it's just that Western philosophy’s grasping model points in one place. And although they, in the end, give up on the Mind Road, maybe the Eastern Mind Road crosses the last river that I'm looking for and will get me out of the suffering.

But you find out that's not what it's like. That's not what it's all about at all.

Any form of grasping—even subtle grasping—causes us suffering and carves off heaven from hell. And we never quite know what side to put ourselves on. We seem to fall on the wrong side.

There's a case in the Shōyōroku, the Book of Equanimity. It’s called “Ryūge Passes the Chin Rest.”

It begins:

Attention!

Ryūge asked Suibi, “What is the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming from the West?”
Suibi said, “Go get the chin rest for me.”
Ryūge brought the chin rest for Suibi, and Suibi then treated him to a blow.
Ryūge remarked, “Hit me if you wish, but there's still no meaning in the Patriarch’s coming from the West.”
Later, Ryūge asked Rinzai, “What’s the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming from the West?”
Rinzai said, “Go get the cushion for me.”
Ryūge brought the cushion to Rinzai, and Rinzai again treated him to a blow.
Ryūge again said, “Hit me if you wish, but there’s still no meaning in the Patriarch’s coming from the West.”
Later still, when Ryūge was living in a temple, a monk said, “Osho, in former times you asked Suibi and Rinzai about the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming from the West. Did they clarify it or not?”
Ryūge replied, “They clarified it alright, but there’s still no meaning in the Patriarch’s coming from the West.”

Our life is laid before us whether we can reason it out or not—and often these koans are too. When we’re practicing with great simplicity and with great wonder, a certain amount of spontaneity comes to the fore that isn’t possible when we’re clinging to some sort of idea about what it is. But reality is difficult.

So we search for explanations. We ask, “Why? What does it mean?”

Ryūge is full of questions. We could say he's full of questions, but in a way, he's almost more full of answers than questions. He asks Suibi, “What is the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming from the West?”

Suibi says, “Go get the chin rest.”

Could you folks see what was coming?

Why couldn’t Ryūge at that point?

He merely complies—and he gets struck.

There are some people who maintain that Ryūge, in the beginning of this case, actually has attained some stage of enlightenment and therefore freedom. But if it’s freedom, it’s certainly not a freedom that releases him from his karmic intransigence. He keeps repeating the same cycles. He asks Rinzai the same question. Anyone who knows Rinzai even vaguely knows what Rinzai’s methods are like, right?

So he asks for the cushion. Doesn’t take much. If you had any questions about it the first time, you certainly don’t have any now. Another blow.

And we get a response from the position of saying, “Hit me if you wish, but there's still no meaning.”

On its surface, we could say, “Well, Ryūge’s got it.” Right?

You want to know what the meaning is right now? What's the meaning?

That bird chirping.

But he thinks he’s understood it—“There’s no meaning. There’s no meaning!”—but he hasn’t realized it. He’s clinging to this “no meaning” as the new meaning.

Some of us are inclined, once we’ve sat with Mu, to treat it like a slogan instead of a gate. If you don’t recognize that Mu is to be experienced, then you’ve missed the whole point.

Later on, a monk asks, “Did Suibi and Rinzai clarify the Dharma or not?”

And Ryūge replies, “They clarified it alright.”

Sometimes that’s what it is, right?

He argues there still is no meaning in the Patriarch’s coming from the West. I would argue that right there is Ryūge having his toe in the door.

“They clarified it alright.”

We can tell now what he’s responding to. He’s being playful and spontaneous with it. But earlier, he thinks he’s passed through the gateless gate—he’s just standing at the threshold, though.

He’s congratulating himself on having named the void. And that’s not what our practice is.

“No meaning” isn’t a conclusion. It’s not a belief. It’s not something you figure out. It’s something that cracks you open. Something that shatters this very notion of who you think you are.

And the backstory to this—Ryūge actually did a lot of traveling. And he went to other teachers, and he would complain, “I’ve been here for over a month and I’ve heard no Dharma.”

One teacher responded, “So what?”

He wasn’t sure about that.

Finally he goes to Tōzan and asks Tōzan.

And Tōzan says, “Are you accusing me of something?”

That last one—Tōzan’s mirror—was what finally reached him. And he actually wound up staying with Tōzan and later awakening. Not because he heard new teachings, but because he fundamentally let go of the he that he was clinging to.

He finally stopped arguing with the Dharma. He stopped trying to pin it down.

We all can do this—turn realization into a stance. Take “no meaning” and hang it on the wall like a certificate.

But if you really have experienced “no meaning,” you’ll recognize there’s nothing to declare. You’ll live it.

It’s natural for us to want to know why we suffer, why we struggle, why we feel separate. And so we look back. We look back in our storehouse consciousness. We weave together a narrative.

You can maybe trace it to our mother or our father or our childhood pain or some event of past hurt. Maybe those stories help you sleep at night—but they won’t free you. They’ll just give your suffering a new context or a new shape to grow in.

And you’ll eventually recognize that even that expanded space you have for maneuvering is still a prison.

So you can’t really blame Ryūge for seeking. You can’t blame him for questioning. But you’ve got to make sure you don’t mistake the echo for the voice.

When you can do that, you can recognize what your life is—and completely and honestly live it.

The Patriarch’s coming from the West is not something to be explained.

What got you on the path today is not something for us to go back and try to address or try to figure out causality.

Right now, in this very body, in this very breath, is where you find all the answers.

Nothing is hidden.

So when you think you have the answer—and when you think there is no answer—if you look very carefully, I think you’ll find the meaning, and you’ll find the answer, if you just look past the grasping mind that wants to neatly encapsulate it.

This isn’t something you can nourish yourself with if you try to make a facsimile of it. You can’t draw a picture of a strawberry and eat it.

There’s a preface to this case—I’m doing it after! It says:

A great sound is rarely heard.
A great vessel matures slowly.
In the hurly-burly of a hundred chatterings,
He plays the fool, patiently letting time pass for thousands of years.
Tell me—what kind of person is this?

What kind of person is that?

When you recognize the boundlessness of this present moment—
When you stop trying to understand—
Then all the answers come to you.

Sometimes they'll come in the stinging blow of a chin rest. Or maybe in your child’s falling and scraping their knee.

But more often than not, we find it when we’re not looking for it.

Let that question burn. Let it stew. Chase it around if you have to.

But eventually, when the mind gives up, you yourself will disappear into the question.

And then you can play the fool, and just patiently let time pass.