The World Honored One Ascends the Teaching Seat

As show, rather than tell, is the essence of good storytelling, Zen tradition presents the Buddha as the consummate storyteller. Rather than talking and philosophizing about truth, in Zen tradition the Buddha demonstrates it, thrusting it before us, trusting that we, too, will see the point. Why this faith in us? Because he knew personally that he, we, and all beings—as unlikely as this may sometimes seem—are all fully and equally endowed with the same original mind of wisdom, compassion, and virtue. The only difference between the Buddha and us is that we just don’t yet know it. 

In koan case 92 of the 100-case Blue Cliff Record (C. Pi Yen Lu; J. Hekigan roku), one of Zen’s most central koan collections, the Buddha’s cosmic realization, born of the rarified air of India, is transformed by the Zen eye of China into something direct and down-to-earth. It is brief and goes as follows:

One day, the World-Honored One took his seat on the platform. Manjusri struck the table with the gavel and said, “Clearly understand the dharma of the King of the Dharma; the dharma of the King of Dharma is like this.” The World-Honored One descended from his seat. 

Still, brief as it is, this koan has its challenges. What is Manjusri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom, teacher of the past seven buddhas, talking about? What is the Dharma King’s Dharma? And why is Manjusri doing the talking when the World Honored One, the Buddha himself, is sitting right there? Further, why does the Buddha stay silent and then simply descend from the teaching seat once Manjusri has spoken? Did he have a previous appointment? Was he signaling approval—or disapproval? What kind of dharma is this? 

In this koan, the Buddha doesn’t say a word and doesn’t really do anything. He gets up on the sitting platform, sits there, hears Manjusri’s few words, and then gets down and leaves. Rather baffling. Why is this included in Blue Cliff Record—“as if it were so wonderful”—a quote from Master Wu-men’s commentary to case six of Gateless Barrier (C. Wu-men kuan; J. Mumonkan), Zen’s other central koan text, titled, “The Buddha Holds Up a Flower.” 

In that koan, the Buddha, rather than giving an enlightening dharma talk to the gathered multitudes, simply holds up a flower. And, all that happens in the koan is that one person alone among the many disciples, arhats, bodhisattvas, gods, ordinary men and women gathered there to hear the Buddha’s talk, breaks into a smile. And the Buddha, seeing that smile, says that he now transmits his dharma to that one person, the Venerable Mahakasyapa. In his commentary on the case, Master Wu-men, compiler of the cases and author of the commentaries and verses of Gateless Barrier, says, “Golden-faced Gautama is certainly outrageous. He turns the noble into the lowly, sells dog flesh advertised as mutton, as if it were so wonderful.” His tongue-in-cheek point is, “What’s so wonderful about this trivial act of holding up a flower instead of giving a dharma talk?” Yet, at least in that incident, the Buddha actually did something, minimal as it was: he held up a flower, and then spoke words of praise for the only person in that assembly to smile. 

But in our present case, Manjusri says a few words and the Buddha just ups and leaves—which doesn’t even qualify as dog’s flesh advertised as mutton, but is simply a nothing burger. Then, again, nothing might be something. A great riff by Lord Buckley, the wild, jazz-surrealist-stoned storyteller of the late 1950s-mid 60s, was about the conquistador, Cabeza de Vaca, who, in 1529, shipwrecked on the coast of Texas, lost everything, even himself. After which, he became a healer among the Indigenous peoples of the Southwest. But, later, once returned to Spain and restored to his ordinary identity, he lost this remarkable ability. At a climactic moment, Lord Buckley quietly says, “To have nothing, you must have …” and then he screams, “Nothing!” And with that, everything—even ourselves—is momentarily gone! His nothing is quite something! You have to laugh, it so catches you by surprise. 

When Emperor Wu of China failed to grasp the meaning of Bodhidharma (Zen’s first ancestor in China, 28th in line from the Buddha), who answered his question about the highest teaching by saying: “Vast emptiness, nothing to be called holy,” Bodhidharma, very much like the Buddha in this koan, just walked away. Which was, at least, a response to the Emperor’s lack of insight. In the koan cited above, Manjusri and the Buddha understand one another well. Yet, still, the Buddha simply descends from the teaching platform and leaves. What did those gathered to hear his dharma think? (Though unmentioned, they were there; Manjusri is, after all, talking to someone.) Had the Buddha and Manjusri planned it? Was Manjusri the only one capable of understanding? Yamada Roshi (Robert Aitken Roshi’s teacher) offers useful words on Manjusri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom. 

Manjusri was a Buddha who returned to the rank of Bodhisattva to save others… [and] is furthermore known as “the teacher of the Seven Buddhas,” those Buddhas of the past whose ranks include Shakyamuni …. 

Manjusri is also the symbol of enlightenment. To become a Buddha, it is necessary to pass through the stage of bodhisattva, and this means having attained enlightenment. Since there is no one who has attained buddhahood without attaining enlightenment, it is for this reason that Manjusri, the symbol of enlightenment, is the teacher to all the buddhas. Though he takes the form of a bodhisattva, he differs not at all from an actual buddha… 

Unpublished comments on Blue Cliff Record, Yamada Koun

(If you’re interested in Manjusri, you might enjoy my book, A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas [Sumeru, 2023] which includes several chapters on him, and on the role he plays in Zen.) 

There’s another well-known Zen incident that seems even closer to our brief koan of the Buddha descending from the teaching seat. Fu Daishi, an enlightened layman in China some 1,000 years after the Buddha, also left that same Emperor dumbfounded. John Wu (in The Golden Age of Zen) says that layman Fu, born 497, “was one of the most extraordinary figures in Buddhism and an important precursor of the School of Zen.” When the Emperor Wu invited layman Fu to lecture on the Diamond Sutra, Fu Daishi simply ascended the teaching platform, rapped on the table with his katsu (small curved stick—symbol of teaching authority), and stepped back down—leaving the Emperor astounded. Koan case 67 of Blue Cliff Record continues the story, adding that when the Emperor admitted he hadn’t understood, Master Chih responded, “The great bodhisattva has expounded the sutra thoroughly.” And there you have it. The Diamond Sutra says—“Like a cloud, a drop of dew, a dream, a fantasy, a flash of lightning, so should we regard all things”— which is what the layman Fu so tellingly expounds. Which seems nearly identical to the actions of the Buddha in our current case. But is it? 

Case 25 of Blue Cliff Record—“The Master of Lotus Flower Peak Holds up His Staff”—may offer some insight.

The master of Lotus Flower Peak held up his staff and showed it to his disciples, saying, “When the ancients got here, why didn’t they remain?” There was no answer from the assembly, so he answered for them, “Because it is of no use in everyday life.” And again he asked, “What will you do with it?” And again, he himself answered in their place, “Taking no heed of others, I place my staff across my shoulders. I go straight ahead, deep into the recesses of the myriad peaks.” 

After enlightenment, the Buddha had sat completely at ease, completely at peace, completely realized beneath the Bodhi Tree. Yet he didn’t stay there. He got up, sought out his five former ascetic disciples, and began a lifetime of teaching, sharing what he’d found and the way to it. 

For those interested in following the Buddha’s way, going on pilgrimage to the sites of the historic Buddha’s life has been an important religious practice. While Zen teachers encourage it, they also remind us that our essential pilgrimage is the journey to the realization of our own mind. And while this mind is never distant, waking to it, paradoxically, requires perseverance and effort. The Buddha’s awakening was the foundation of his teaching, because it alone resolved his painful awareness of impermanence. That same realization that brought peace and joy to the Buddha is accessible to each of us. Because it is already who we are, it remains the living core of the Buddha way, and of Zen’s tradition of ongoing practice-realization. 

The Sanskrit word samsara, which literally means “ wandering,” is our life as perceived/created/experienced by a wandering, unfocused mind. What world might we experience with a focused mind, or even with no-mind? Case 20 of Book of Serenity ( C. Congrang Lu; J. Shoyoroku) offers this: 

Ti-ts’ang or Lo-han (J. Jizo), asked Fayen (J. Hogen), “What are you up to these days?” 
Fayen said, “I am wandering at random.” 
Ti-ts’ang said, “What do you expect from wandering?” 
Fayen said, “I don’t know” 
Ti-ts’ang said, “Not knowing is most intimate.” 
Fayen was suddenly enlightened. 

What is this cup, flower, star, tree, river, person, when freed from our accumulated sureties, our “knowledge” about it? How marvelous, even profound, each speck of dust might be. Not-knowing is most intimate, “intimacy” being another traditional word for realization, or enlightenment. One of Blake’s now-famous verses (he was essentially unknown in his lifetime, considered a crank or madman—except for the handful of artists and patrons who honored, even revered him) goes like this: 

To see a world in a grain of sand 
And a heaven in a wild flower, 
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand 
And eternity in an hour.

“Auguries of Innocence,” W. Blake

Intimacy, indeed! Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom, says, “form is only emptiness, emptiness only form.” Blake, all on his own, out of his own experience, wrote: “Eternity is in love with the productions of time.” (“Proverbs of Hell,” The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.) 

The essential journey of this life, the hero/heroine’s quest, is the journey from isolation to intimacy. It is a matter of coming home. This fundamental pilgrimage shapes the contours of our lives, taking shape in and through the challenges, frustrations, upsets, joys, and decisions of our everyday living. Consciously lived, this life as it is has the potential to take us from ignorance to wisdom, self-centeredness to selflessness, immaturity to maturity, wandering to homecoming. In the koan of the Buddha ascending and descending the teaching seat, two pilgrimages meet. Meeting the Buddha, we establish faith in the reality of his teaching; meeting ourselves, we gain the confidence to live the truth he found as our own. 

Yet this koan’s baited hook remains firmly set. What is Manjusri, Bodhisattva of Wisdom, talking about when, like some loudmouthed carnival barker, he insists that the dharma of the King of the Dharma is like this? And, why, once he proclaims it— as if it were so wonderful—does the Buddha simply get up and leave? 

What kind of teaching is this? How can it possibly make us happy?

♦

Adapted from Finding Your Buddha Smile: Coming Home (To What Zen Is Really All About). © by Rafe Martine. Reprinted with permission from The Sumeru Press Inc.