Volume 1, Track 9
Zen meditation is known as zazen. And in Rinzai meditation, it is interrupted by individual meetings with a Master, the so-called Kill or Be Killed confrontation, known as sanzen. At this meeting, the Master asks the student how he understands the enigmatic koan that has been given to him to solve, such as, “You have heard the sound of two hands clapping. What is the sound of one hand?”
The intellect is useless in such inquiry, and koan practice can be the most frustrating activity in the world. I have seen prominent people, well established scientists, turn white as they squatted outside the Master’s sanzen room, waiting for their turn and dreading the consequence.
One time as they squatted, they heard the Roshi banging on the floor with his stick, vehemently repeating, “No, no.” This didn’t bring the color back into their cheeks. Finally, the Master’s voice was raised to a shout as he screamed, “Don’t come back until you know the answer.” And a student came flying out the door of the sanzen’s room, looking as though he’d been hit by a train.
Zazen (that is, cross leg meditation) resumed, and the unfortunate student began to feel a little better. After all, he wouldn’t have to go back into the lion’s den and face the Master anytime soon.
Sanzen was announced again, and one by one, the students went to sit in the ante room outside the sanzen chamber. Knowing he would not have to go, the student sat secure in his zazen posture. Soon, the head monk, seeing that the student had not moved, came over to him and repeated sanzen sharply. The student shook his head “No.”
With that, the head man and a helper, picked him up by the elbows and carried him, struggling and screaming, to the Master’s room, where they thrust him in the door, as the Master shouted, “I thought I told you not to come back until you knew the answer.”
Under such a trauma, he might just produce a satisfactory answer from deep in the unconscious.
To listen to Justin reading Spiritual Stories of the East, click here.