Mumonkan 19: neither knowledge nor ignorance
(This is a follow-up to the entry: "Escape from
Karma - Or: Follow The Yellow Brick Road?")
This koan is as follows (from the translation
of Thomas Cleary, in Unlocking the Zen
Koan):
No translation is sufficient by itself, especially when it comes to koans! So: a few comments on specific words.
"The Way" is the Chinese word "Tao," familiar to anyone who has read Lao Tzu. (Actually, study of Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" is very relevant to everything said here.) It can also be linked to "The Yellow Brick Road" in my previous entry. It is the idea of a path that can be followed to truth, heaven, nirvana, the answer to all our questions about suffering and evil. It is the first assumption of everyone who is deeply troubled about all that is unsupportable about life. "How can I get out of this situation? Is there an Emerald Castle, and a Wizard who can solve my problems?"
In Chinese culture, the Tao is also the way the world runs, or more precisely, the hidden basic principles that rule all changes. It is not found only in Lao Tzu and the Taoist tradition. Confucius, in the Analects: "If a man hear the Way in the morning, he may die without regret in the evening." "The Way I teach is a unity that runs through all things."
Zhaozhou (Japanese: "Joshu") was one of the greatest Chinese Ch'an (Zen) teachers; in this story, he was still a young student. Nanquan (Japanese: "Nansen"), his teacher, was also one of the greats.
Cleary's "Normal" is a translation of (in the Japanese pronunciation) "byojoshin." A more precise translation would be "the even (or level), ordinary (constant) mind." As he says in his comments, as well as every commentator on this koan, this "ordinary mind" is not what we would think it is at first. That is, it is not just the hodge-podge stream of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions we experience running through our minds from moment to moment. But then again, it is not completely divorced from them. Let us go through the rest of the koan and try to see what Nanquan means.
"Can it be approached deliberately?" can also be translated: "Is there some particular direction one can go in?" Zhaozhou, like any searcher for the Way, is nonplussed; it seems to him as though he needs to orient his mind in a particular direction, and Nanquan, the "expert," can tell him which direction. This is the way we normally try to answer any question, after all. If we have lost our house key, we want to know where to look. If we are trying to solve a complicated mathematical problem, we naturally want the teacher to point us "in the right direction," as we say. We want a "mental map" to the solution. This "traveling" metaphor for problem-solving seems to have been as natural to the Chinese over a thousand years ago as it is to us.
"If one does not try" could also be written as "If one does not aim in a particular direction," or "follow a particular method for solving the problem." One literal meaning of the verb used here is "imitate or pattern one thing after another." Zhaozhou seems to be saying, "If you, the teacher, don't give me a pattern of inquiry I can imitate, aren't I helpless -- completely unable to get out of the absolute state of confusion I am in?"
Then Nanquan finally states what he means as clearly as he can. "You can't get to the Way with either knowledge or ignorance. Knowledge is false consciousness, and unknowing is indifference." "False consciousness" could be translated more precisely as "lies," "made-up stories," or "hokum," and "indifference" as "blankness," the tabula rasa that empiricists like Locke assumed was the state of the mind before the senses began delivering sensations or "sense impressions" to it.
The "inimitable Way" is more literally the "no-doubt Way" or "no-perplexity Way." If the Way is actually neither a matter of knowledge nor of ignorance, there would be no room for doubt, since doubt is a mental state in which we are unsure of whether a certain statement is true or false, neither of which applies to the Way.
But what does Nanquan really mean by saying that the Way is neither known nor not known? Does this make any sense?
The Normal Is the Way
Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, "What is the Way?"
Nanquan said, "The normal mind is the Way."
Zhaozhou asked, "Can it be approached deliberately?"
Nanquan said, "If you try to aim for it, you thereby turn away from it."
Zhaozhou said, "If one does not try, how can one know it is the Way?"
Nanquan said, "The Way is not in the province of knowledge, yet not in the province of unknowing. Knowledge is false consciousness, unknowing is indifference. If you really arrive at the inimitable Way, it is like space, empty and open; how can you insist on affirmation and denial?"
At these words, Zhaozhou was suddenly enlightened.
No translation is sufficient by itself, especially when it comes to koans! So: a few comments on specific words.
"The Way" is the Chinese word "Tao," familiar to anyone who has read Lao Tzu. (Actually, study of Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" is very relevant to everything said here.) It can also be linked to "The Yellow Brick Road" in my previous entry. It is the idea of a path that can be followed to truth, heaven, nirvana, the answer to all our questions about suffering and evil. It is the first assumption of everyone who is deeply troubled about all that is unsupportable about life. "How can I get out of this situation? Is there an Emerald Castle, and a Wizard who can solve my problems?"
In Chinese culture, the Tao is also the way the world runs, or more precisely, the hidden basic principles that rule all changes. It is not found only in Lao Tzu and the Taoist tradition. Confucius, in the Analects: "If a man hear the Way in the morning, he may die without regret in the evening." "The Way I teach is a unity that runs through all things."
Zhaozhou (Japanese: "Joshu") was one of the greatest Chinese Ch'an (Zen) teachers; in this story, he was still a young student. Nanquan (Japanese: "Nansen"), his teacher, was also one of the greats.
Cleary's "Normal" is a translation of (in the Japanese pronunciation) "byojoshin." A more precise translation would be "the even (or level), ordinary (constant) mind." As he says in his comments, as well as every commentator on this koan, this "ordinary mind" is not what we would think it is at first. That is, it is not just the hodge-podge stream of thoughts, feelings, and perceptions we experience running through our minds from moment to moment. But then again, it is not completely divorced from them. Let us go through the rest of the koan and try to see what Nanquan means.
"Can it be approached deliberately?" can also be translated: "Is there some particular direction one can go in?" Zhaozhou, like any searcher for the Way, is nonplussed; it seems to him as though he needs to orient his mind in a particular direction, and Nanquan, the "expert," can tell him which direction. This is the way we normally try to answer any question, after all. If we have lost our house key, we want to know where to look. If we are trying to solve a complicated mathematical problem, we naturally want the teacher to point us "in the right direction," as we say. We want a "mental map" to the solution. This "traveling" metaphor for problem-solving seems to have been as natural to the Chinese over a thousand years ago as it is to us.
"If one does not try" could also be written as "If one does not aim in a particular direction," or "follow a particular method for solving the problem." One literal meaning of the verb used here is "imitate or pattern one thing after another." Zhaozhou seems to be saying, "If you, the teacher, don't give me a pattern of inquiry I can imitate, aren't I helpless -- completely unable to get out of the absolute state of confusion I am in?"
Then Nanquan finally states what he means as clearly as he can. "You can't get to the Way with either knowledge or ignorance. Knowledge is false consciousness, and unknowing is indifference." "False consciousness" could be translated more precisely as "lies," "made-up stories," or "hokum," and "indifference" as "blankness," the tabula rasa that empiricists like Locke assumed was the state of the mind before the senses began delivering sensations or "sense impressions" to it.
The "inimitable Way" is more literally the "no-doubt Way" or "no-perplexity Way." If the Way is actually neither a matter of knowledge nor of ignorance, there would be no room for doubt, since doubt is a mental state in which we are unsure of whether a certain statement is true or false, neither of which applies to the Way.
But what does Nanquan really mean by saying that the Way is neither known nor not known? Does this make any sense?
Posted: Tue - May 10, 2005 at 02:25 PM | |
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