Awakening In The Dark
Awakening In The Dark
More on Dongshan's Five Ranks
Dongshan Liangjie’s “Gatha of the Five Positions of Ruler and Minister,” the first cycle in the Five Ranks, opens with the following two verses. They are titled “The Contingent within the Essential” and “The Essential within the Contingent” respectively.
At the beginning of the third watch, before moonrise, don’t be surprised if there is meeting without recognition; one still vaguely harbors the elegance of former days. Having overslept, an old woman encounters the ancient mirror. This is clearly meeting face-to-face—only then is it genuine. Don’t lose your head by validating shadows.
From one point of view, the gatha offers five positions (or perspectives) on awakening in poetic verse rich with imagery. The other three verses in the first cycle, which I may explore in the future, are titled “Arriving within the Essential,” “Approaching from the Contingent,” and “Arriving at Concurrence.” I limit myself to two verses here because they offer plenty for reflection—even one verse is sufficient for the activity.
When I think of awakening and the language I use and see others use to describe it, I notice that much of that language involves light and associated themes. Sometimes, the word “enlightenment” is used in place of “awakening,” which has the word “light” embedded in it. We often find the adjectives “bright” or “clear.” There is the recurring image of the moon, too, which varies in form: the moon itself, the moon reflected in the water, the moon unobscured by clouds or a grass hut, or a moonrise.
The tendency to associate awakening with light, with the light, is reinforced by the (apparent) opposition that awakening is put in with darkness. In the first verse, for example, the third watch of the night is mentioned. A hasty Google search shows that the third watch of the night is from 12:00 to 3:00 AM and, when paired with “before moonrise,” suggests great darkness to me. The suggestion is encouraged by the possibility of “meeting without recognition” in the next line, caused in part because of the vague harboring of former days’s “elegance,” a word that may signify less grace and style and more that whatever is elegant is easily identifiable, perceivable, or recognizable.
And yet, Zen texts frequently contain language indicating that the relationship between awakening, light, and darkness is not so simple. In “Harmony of Difference and Equality,” we read:
Light and dark oppose one another like the front and back foot in walking.
Yes, there is opposition, but not opposition that entails exclusion. Rather, we are invited to explore opposition that manifests as cooperation in support of an activity: walking. Without two feet opposed to one another and their positions relative to each other ever-shifting—the front foot becoming the back foot and the back foot becoming the front foot—the continual redistribution of weight necessary for walking does not happen.
Similarly, the verse presents us with a perspective from which light and dark, though opposed to one another, cooperate to support awakening. How? That is part of what I want to explore below, for I am beginning to see awakening differently. No longer is awakening something that happens only where there is light, where things are bright and clear, or when the moon can be easily seen.
There is awakening at the beginning of the third watch, too, before moonrise.
When I hear the words “meeting without recognition,” I immediately think that something has been missed. What has been missed? It is unclear, but whatever it is, it fills a blank in a sentence of the form, “I could have had __________, but I missed it, I missed the opportunity.” There is a sense that something was lost where there could have been a gain; there is a feeling that the loss is unbeneficial and the gain now out of reach would have been beneficial.
The old woman’s encounter with the ancient mirror plays with these ideas, specifically that the face-to-face meeting is genuine. The old woman succeeds (in some way), whereas the person in the dark of night fails. Then, I notice and am surprised by how quickly notions of gain, benefit, and success (and their opposites) dominate my thinking. The verse does not mention or include them; they are my projections. The verse is a mirror in its own way, reflecting some part of what is present within me.
So, let us return to the phrase “meeting without recognition.” If I acknowledge yet set to one side the above, what else is there? Again, I find a verse from “Harmony of Difference and Equality” instructive:
Refined and common speech come together in the dark, clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light.
Usually, I prize distinctions—a reflection of nearly ten years of philosophical training in outright analytic or analytic-leaning departments. Zen practice, however, has shown me that distinctions are not necessarily helpful or otherwise useful. Sometimes, there is a meeting without recognition in the bright light of a simple distinction. When I am confronted with a duality and feel forced to choose between, say, good and bad, I can fly far and away from the situation in which I am standing, sitting, or lying down, far from the reality of my life at that moment.
In such times, I try to remember that I am never forced to choose “against my will,” as the expression goes. Even when there is great pressure from others, the choice always lies with me. As I mentioned in my last post and as Kobun Chino reminds us, how we manifest this life is all our responsibility.
More to the point, though, is that the distinctions and dualities I meet daily are largely (if not entirely) projections of my mind. They are not substantial; they are not part of reality. And when they drop away, the opportunity arises for seemingly disparate things to come together: refined and common speech, for instance. There is the possibility of a meeting in the darkness, but it is a different sort of meeting. In an attempt to gesture towards it, I will call this different sort of meeting a “direct meeting” or an “immediate meeting,” which I intend as other ways of saying a “meeting without recognition.”
I do not know what I am meeting (nor who this “I” is that meets it), but there is a meeting, a meeting free of the familiar impulse to classify what is met as this or that, right or wrong, welcome or unwelcome. I do not recognize what is in front of me, and I feel no compulsion to grab hold of it or push it away. The meeting happens at the beginning of the third watch, before moonrise, in a space of pure potentiality.
Awakening in the dark, encouraged by a meeting without recognition, might benefit from a single-word companion different from “enlightenment.” In Through Forests of Every Color, Joan Sutherland Roshi introduces the term “endarkenment” to refer to this other side of awakening. (The term appears in her commentary on the Vimalakirti Sutra, too, but more is said about it in Forests. The latter is a later work.) She writes:
Coupled with enlightenment is endarkenment. At the center of the luminous temple, we find, is a well so deep with waters so dark that there’s no penetrating it, no sense of where or whether it ends. This is what Daoists call the dark mysterious, and what Shitou said is the dark from which stream the branches of light that make up the universe. Endarkenment begins as a humbling realization of this unknowable mystery at the heart of things. It unfolds as a growing ease with the unknowing, an appreciation of the rich, invisible medium in which everything lives.
Here, we find more adjectives associated with awakening when viewed in the light: luminous, penetrating. But we also find themes of awakening in the dark: depth, mystery, and not-knowing. We need a blend of both in this life.
There is a reference to another couplet from “Harmony of Difference and Equality,” too. The lines are:
The spiritual source shines clear in the light; the branching streams flow on in the dark.
The image of “branching streams flow[ing] on in the dark” invites the play of surprise and feelings of wonder, which can be hindered when things shine clear in the light. In a dark environment incapable of penetration, where will the branching streams flow? How will they turn and twist, come together and separate? We cannot say in advance; sometimes, we cannot say until long after or, perhaps, ever in our lifetime. But because there is clear shining and streams flowing, there is the blending of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, and strong feelings interspersed with numbness.
The more I sit zazen, read, and write about the manifestation of the Dharma in my life, the more I appreciate the second member of each pair, especially when coupled with a strong feeling of aversion. Pain, sorrow, and numbness—to name only a few feelings—remind me of the mystery of this life; they sustain my connection to not-knowing. These together support intimacy with the heart-mind.
Having overslept, an old woman encounters the ancient mirror. This is clearly meeting face-to-face—only then is it genuine.
When I first read these lines from the second verse, I resonated with the connection between oversleeping and meeting face-to-face. I rarely oversleep. I cling to routine, and there is something to disciplined activity. Similar to distinctions deployed in carving and classifying my experiences, however, it sometimes cuts in front of the ancient mirror, obstructing a genuine meeting.
When my routine is disrupted, though, whether because of a faulty alarm clock, exhaustion and illness, or a large-scale transition, an opening presents itself. In that instant, I cannot rely on the structure of a schedule; I cannot rewind the clock and fulfill the to-be-completed tasks of several hours before. That time was spent slumbering. Instead, I am challenged—and it is a challenge for me—to engage with the question
So, now what?
What is present within me and moving through me? What is alive in this heart-mind? What is happening right here, right now?
You find encouragement to attend to what is present throughout Zen texts. Nanyue Mingzan writes in his poem “Enjoying the Way” to “When hungry, eat; \ Tired, sleep” and “When you have to go, go; \ When you have to stay, stay.” Acknowledging that some may call immediate attention to what is “stupid,” he offers the perspective, “It’s what we originally are.”
But what is that, and can we summon the courage to meet it face-to-face, without recognition, on a pitch-black night before the moon rises?
I find that courage these days in memories of the eyes and chuckles of my first teacher, Koan Gary Janka Sensei.
Elsewhere, I recall Koan’s frequent encouragement to “just keep going.” If Koan were ever asked what the essential teaching of the Buddhadharma is, his response would be those three words. I remember, too, how he would smile—a smile that sat below kind eyes—when I shared during daisan wherever I was “stuck” in practice. The slight nod of the head that accompanied such smiles told me he understood and had been there, too. “It is a little early in your life for a mid-life crisis, Taishin!” he would sometimes say, but always there were those three words: just. keep. going.
At this moment, though, his patience and willingness to take his place are front of mind.
One Sunday afternoon, following the usual service and sitting, we sat in a circle. A council was held; several months earlier, Koan had announced his intention to step down as Guiding Teacher. A diagnosis of Parkinson’s meant that preparations needed to be made, a plan of action developed and set in motion. We had gathered to share our views on the importance of a teacher to a sangha and how the Santa Barbara Zen Center might begin searching for someone to succeed Koan, even if only for a short term.
He sat, listening to each person speak when it was their turn. And though Koan was present and offered a few words in the spirit of facilitating a smooth council, he understood that this was not his discussion to command or steer. When painful moments found their footing, he sat, trusting we would find our way into and out of them. Where there were misunderstandings and cross-talk, he remained steady and silent. Imperturbable calmness, resolute presence, and somehow interwoven with the whole of what unfolded in that small room without any interference. All while the mortality and frailty of his life and its effects were right in front of him.
As I sit in the middle of my own transition, I feel a desire for something more than “just keep going” to sustain me. What would you say, Koan? From where came such constancy and conviction? Would it be “keep your presence in the present”? I wonder …
Perhaps you would say, “Don’t lose your head by validating shadows, Taishin. And there are shadows only where there is light. Please spend some time awakening in the dark.”
You might consider reading the following:
This was such a wonderful read, on so many accounts! Thank you for introducing me to the two seminal texts, the concept of endarkenment and nanyue's poem. I have a lot to think about now :)