Almost anyone who has heard the word Zen knows or at least thinks they know about the Zen koan. These are illogical puzzles that are supposed to shake us out of our normal way of thinking and into a great awakening. Some of the most popular are “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” and “What was your original face before your parents were born?” or my personal favorite “If a tree falls on a mime in a forest, does he make a sound?” The word koan means public case and refers to a conversation between a master and student. For the most part, the intensive studying and answering of koans is confined to the Rinzai school of Zen, but that doesn’t mean that they are not read and loved by many Soto teachers, including Dogen.
The two most prominent koan collections are the Mumonkan or Gateless Gate and the Hekiganroku or Blue Cliff Record. Often, a case is chosen from one of these two collections and used as the starting point for a Dharma Talk on the topic of the case. In that storied tradition and in honor of Kannon the Bodhisattva of Compassion, She Who Hears the Cries of the World, I present case 89 of the Hekiganroku “Ungan’s ‘The Whole Body is Hand and Eye’”.
But, because it wouldn’t be one of my talks if it stayed completely on the straight and narrow, I am using the paraphrase of this case done by Brad Warner in his book It Came From Beyond Zen which is a collection of paraphrases and commentaries on various parts of Dogen Zenji’s Shobogenzo. So what you’re getting is Brad’s version of Dogen’s version of Case 89 from the Blue Cliff Record. Enjoy!
Hekiganroku – Case 89 – Ungan’s The Whole Body is Hand and Eye
Master Ungan Donjo asked Master Dogo Enchi. “What does Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, do with all her bazillions of hands and eyes?”
Dogo said, “She is like someone reaching for a pillow in the middle of the night.”
Ungan said, “Right on. I get it.”
Dogo said, “How do you get it?”
Ungan said, “The entire body is hands and eyes.”
Dogo said, “Not bad. I give that answer a B+.”
Ungan said, “That’s my take on it. What’s yours, bro?”
Dogo said, “No matter where you go, it’s all hands and eyes.”
Compassion is a popular topic of discussion especially when it comes to Buddhism. Everyone has an opinion on what it means to be compassionate or what compassionate action looks like. Often, we think that if we are helping to alleviate someone’s suffering that we are doing something compassionate. But is that always true? Is what looks compassionate always compassion?
Rather than attempt to explain the entire case, I want to focus on just one line “She is like someone reaching for a pillow in the middle of the night.” As a side note, Dogen devotes an entire chapter of Shobogenzo called “Kannon” to this case and a broader discussion of compassion. If you’re interested, check out any of the standard translations or Brad’s It Came From Beyond Zen for in depth commentary and discussion.
Another quick aside, Kannon here is referred to as female. In the Heart Sutra, she is a he. “He clearly saw that the five aggregates are empty.” I feel that this is worth pointing out because to me it shows that compassion is a universal capacity that we all possess regardless of who or what we are.
Back to the discussion at hand. As a reminder the important phrase here is, “She is like someone reaching for a pillow in the middle of the night.”
We have all had the experience of waking in the night to change sleeping positions. We fix what needs to be fixed, move our pillows and blankets, then get back to sleeping. This is the crucial point. In this case, we are doing what needs to be done in the moment without thinking about it. True compassion is doing what needs to be done in each moment regardless of what it might look like to an outside observer. And really, if you take this idea all the way to it’s conclusion, true compassion happens without thinking. Prajna Paramita. Wisdom beyond Wisdom.
In reading Dogen’s chapter on compassion, there is one other point that continually jumps out at me which is the idea of night and day. Dogen says “We should examine the difference between nighttime as it is supposed in the light of day and the nighttime as it is in the night.” In the daylight, we can see what needs to be done to fix a situation, but in the dark of night, the solution may not be so obvious. This is extremely important because often we comment on what the compassionate action is in a given situation from an outside position, a place of daylight assuming we understand the night. However, when we are in a situation, in the dark of night, what to do is not so clear. And what happens in a place that is neither completely day or completely night? When we begin to see the difference between night and day, we see how hard it is to judge anyone’s actions, but our own.
So what do we do with all this? What do you think?
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