BURNING THE CLOISTER
OneSato Giei walked the corridor connecting the huge zendo-hall with the roshi's room. He walked it slowly because he was all turmoil and terror. His fear-clogged senses were not able to notice the fine scent of cedarwood or the subtle harmonies the architects had tried to express by giving this building the shape they had done. Rohatsu - sesshin: since December 8, Sato Gieis life (and his fellow monks' life as well) consisted of nothing but meditation, dokusan with the roshi, a little rice and just enough sleep to keep the men alive. Shakyamuni-Buddha did not sleep when enlightenment found him under the bodhi-tree. Sato Giei was tired. He had already gone through go annai today. The roshi had kicked him out because he hadn't been able to offer a better answer to his master's questions than a weak and unconvincing Ho! Ten minutes later he had found himself embracing the middle-post of the zendo-hall. Nevertheless the jikijitsu and his aides had muscled him away and brought him back to the roshi. This was meant as a kind of shock therapy to squeeze a better answer from his weary brain than the one he had given before. He hadn't been able to answer anything at all. More kicks to be dealt with, and the roshi had called him a poor cave-dwelling devil. Was he in now for another set of well-pointed kicks? Great strength of will, encouraged Sato Giei himself. Didn't Bodhidarma cut his eyelids off and stare at a blank wall for nine years to get a deeper understanding of what BUDDHA means? Didn't Niso Eka even cut his right arm off to be accepted as a disciple by Bodhidarma? What does the Zen monk need to follow the proper way? Dai-gidan, dai-funshi and dai-shinkon. Great strength of doubt, great strength of will, great strength of faith. What do I need to answer the roshi's question? What had the question of the roshi been anyway? He could feel cold sweat wet his forehead. When he didn't remember the question, how on earth should he answer it? What a relief when he remembered his master's words from this very morning. There is the heart of love, and there is the heart of compassion, but what is the nature of the deep heart itself? How do you understand the third heart? Tell me, you monks! His habit just hung from his body like the rags hang from a scarecrow. His thoughts hung from his brain just the same: nothing there of any importance. He had joined the monastery at the new years beginning. Since then he had made no progress towards understanding the BUDDHA. At least the thought so now. How about giving the answer Hsiang-Lin had given when asked for the meaning of the coming from the West: Fed up with sitting? But he knew too well that the roshi would recognize an answer like that as a futile gesture. An answer like that would bring nothing about but new kicks and new whacks. There was an upsurge of panic in his shrunken belly. What if the master even didn't care to hit him? What if he just was to be called a poor cave-dwelling devil once again? The end of the corridor drawing near. Light shining through the paperwalls. Two rings of the bell. And in he went. A threefold bow. The bleak face of the master, apish lines sideways restricting the mouth. The shippei-cane in front of him: a sword that gives life, a killing sword. "Now what is your answer?", he asked Sato Giei. Involuntarily, Sato Giei blared: "Nothing of importance." His master laughed aloud and said: "The finger pointing at the moon is not the moon itself. Idle talk of nothingness is no Zen." And he rang the bell, sending Sato Giei back to the Zendo-hall for further meditation. While Sato Giei was performing his bows with clasped hands, the master called him a poor cave-dwelling devil. And out he went.
TwoThe glaring shine of the raging fire reddened the bellies of low travelling clouds. Dawn, slowly and gently enflaming the eastern sky was competing with the red flames springing out of the cloister's windows and roofs like shortlived roses, blossoming and dying away all at once. The earliest morn and a strong wind, like a pair of bellows right out of hell, gave the fire the power of a furnace. The roshi stood atop a slight hill, some dozen yards away from his burning monastery. The heat was already strong enough to make his face glow, even at his rather comfortable distance. What was burning there? His life's harvest was burning there: the cloister's library with costly scripts and delicate ink-drawings on rice paper, some even ascribed to the great Hakuin himself. The Buddha-hall was burning, with its incomparable beautiful statue of a Manushri-Bodhisattva, bound to fade in this furnace like ice in the blazing sun. There had been little rain lately, and the dry wood was easy prey to the flames. The monks were slaving to fetch some water out of the small brook flowing close to the premises. It didn't flow close enough, and it didn't contain enough water. The water that could be fed to the fire didn't harm it at all. "Extinguish the fire, you monks", the roshi yelled at the top of his voice. "Extinguish it! Remember Niso Eka! Fetch the bones of the Buddha from this furnace! Extinguish the fire!" Nobody was listening to him. Nobody could. With a deep grumble, the roof of the Buddha-hall was sinking in, swarming a myriad of sparks out of the windows and burning the firefighters who hadn't been able to draw back fast enough. Shouts of pain and desperation were heard. "Extinguish the fire!", The roshi yelled once again. One of the monks split from the group, a wooden bucket dangling from his right hand, and started to run up to him. Suddenly the roshi recognized him: it was Sato Giei, an unsui who had joined the Monastery of the White Mountains last year. He remembered the man particularly for his hysteric tendencies. On the other hand, nobody else but this very hysteric would be his successor: this the message of a dream two weeks old. When Sato Giei met the roshi at the top of the hill, he let go of the bucket and went down on his knees. He was breathing very hard. When he had gathered his breath again, he said: "The basin is broken, the well dried away, I cannot extinguish the fire." The roshi pulled him up in one quick and harmonious motion and looked him in the eyes. "Who said you alone have to extinguish the fire? You go and help the others! Hurry up!" Sato Giei bowed and withdrew. The roshi stood atop his lonely hill till the monastery was nothing more than smoldering ashes. Smoke was rising from the ruins. The monks had gone down to the ground, exhausted to death. There was little left for the scarce water to be poured upon. The roshi turned. Nothing to be done here anymore. When he had pushed away Sato Giei, a tiny and slow spark of understanding had lit in the man's eyes, very like a slow and gentle lightning. Clasping his pilgrim's rod he threw the matches into a bush.
ThreeThe community had already completely gathered to hear the morning speech of the roshi, but the master appeared to be a little late. Nobody stirred. No murmuring was to be heard. This was the famous monastery of the white mountains. They were under the gentle guidance of the great Sato Giei. The man was older already than the mountains themselves: no reason to murmur. When finally the old man moved in, a shrunken and tiny white-haired figure in an unusual delicate habit, many of the waiting monks felt moved by nothing but his insecure and cautious walk. He was wearing a beard as well. Nobody else in this community was allowed a beard. The master sat down, awkwardly. His black rod, bigger than the man himself, crossed his seated body from knee to shoulder, forming a barrier between the master and his disciples. And then his voice came out. How surprisingly clear, young and fresh this was a voice! Everybody was to understand: this voice was unmistakably ringing the bell of awareness. Who might have expected a mildly deranged and mellow mind behind the appearance of the man, a somewhat grandfatherly and simpleton-like character, was taught something different by this voice. A simpleton all right. But one whose simplicity coalesced a subtle and diamondlike clarity, sometimes striking his listeners with a blinding light. What was he talking about? "You all know, my brothers, there is the threefold heart of man. There's the heart of compassion and there's the heart of love. What do you call like the third heart? What is its true name? Meditate on this, my brothers. I'd like to hear your true answers." He paused and got up. Standing there, suddenly the old man again, he smiled. And then, to the total surprise of everyone present, he roared at the top of his voice: "HO!" He clapped his hands three times. And while his listeners recovered slowly from his acoustic attack, he left the hall without any further comment.
Burning the cloister © Marcus Hammerschmitt, 1996