In continuing with our spring series on ancestors—particularly on our woman ancestors, IkuShun Desiree Webster introduces the sangha to “Miaoxin.” Miaoxin lived in 9th century China and was the student of Yangshan (803-887).
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In continuing with our spring series on ancestors—particularly on our woman ancestors, I would like to introduce you to “Miaoxin.” Miaoxin lived in 9th century China and was the student of Yangshan (803-887.) Miaoxin would not be known to us at all if it weren’t for Master Eihei Dogen, who extolled her understanding of the Dharma, and made it be known that the Dharma and true understanding are not restricted to being born in a male body. He discussed this in his chapter, “Making a Bow and Getting the Marrow,” (Rai Hai Tokuzui) a chapter in Shobogenzo.
In this fascicle, Miaoxin is featured and her interaction with seventeen monks at the temple gate is explained in detail by Master Dogen, although his telling is the only historic account of her life. This fascicle is famous for Dogen’s explicit teachings on not getting caught in male or female, or any particular form, but choosing a teacher/leader solely based on if they have gained understanding of the true dharma.
The story goes, as follows, in Dogen’s words, from Shobogenzo
When Yangshan was choosing a director of the office for secular affairs [public affairs], he asked widely among the retired senior and junior officers who the person should be. After an exchange of questions and answers, Yangshan said in the end, Xin, the disciple from Huai, though she may be female, has the determination of a great person. She is certainly qualified to serve as the director of the office. All the assembly agreed; and, in the end Miaoxin was appointed director. At the time, the “dragon elephants” in Yangshan’s assembly did not resent it. (Footnote: dragon elephants was a term for superior religious practitioners.)
After she had taken up her position, once, when she was in the office, there were seventeen monks from Shu, who had banded together to seek out a teacher and inquire about the way. Thinking to climb Yangshan [mountain—btw—many Chinese masters were named for the mountain they lived on/near…], they had taken lodgings at dusk in the office for secular affairs. During the evening talk while they were staying, someone brought up the Eminent Ancestor Caoxi’s [tsao-si’s] wind and banner story. [This is from the famous tale of the Sixth Ancestor, Huineng—and two monks arguing over whether it was the wind or the banner that moves…Huineng stopped them and said: it’s not the wind that moves, it’s not the banner that moves—it’s your mind that moves.]
Dogen continued: What everyone of the seventeen monks had to say, said it wrong. At that time, Miaoxin, director of the office, who could hear the monks discussing from the other side of the wall, said, ‘Seventeen blind donkeys! How sad! How many pairs of straw sandals have they wasted? The buddha dharma, they’ve never seen even in their dreams’.”
At that time, there was a postulant (a lay candidate for ordination) who, hearing Miaoxin’s disapproval of the monks, told the seventeen monks. None of the seventeen monks resented the disapproval of the director of the office, Miaoxin. Ashamed that they could not say it, they straightaway donned proper attire, and, offering incense and making bows, requested instruction.
Miaoxin said, “Come forward!” As the seventeen monks were still moving, she said, “it’s not the wind moving; it’s not the flag moving; it’s not the mind moving.”
Instructed in this way, all seventeen monks had an insight. Bowing in thanks, they adopted the correct behavior of disciples to a teacher. They quickly returned to the Western Shu and, in the end, never climbed Yangshan [mountain.] Dogen ends by saying, “truly, this is not something that could be reached by the three worthies and ten sages; it is the work of the way of successor after successor of buddhas and ancestors.~
This story from Dogen is also one of the selections in “the Hidden Lamp” edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Moon, a favorite resource about our women ancestors, which we have been using for our talks.
In the Hidden Lamp, Myoan Grace Shireson was the commentator for this story. Myoan Grace Shireson is a well-known teacher in our Soto Zen lineage. She is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, who also gave our founding teacher Zoketsu Norman Fischer and my teacher Ryushin Andrea Thach transmission.
Grace describes how Dogen emphasized in the fascicle of “Getting the Marrow” the importance of being willing to receive teachings without attachment to a teacher’s formal title or rank.” She goes on to say that “his instructions in this fascicle so supported women as equal partners that 20th century Soto Zen nuns referenced it to reclaim their place as full dharma successors in Dogen’s lineage.”
As I mentioned earlier, the story of the wind, banner, and mind, come from a koan handed down from the time of Huineng, the 6th patriarch (638-713.) To re-cap, it is said that the early monks were arguing about the wind and the banner. “It’s not the wind that moves, it’s the banner” said one…the other said, “it’s not the banner that moves, it’s the wind!” Huineng, the 6th Patriarch intervened saying, “it is not the wind that moves, it is not the banner that moves, its your MIND that moves…”
But this story on the lips of the seventeen monks, bored Miaoxin. In Grace Shireson’s commentary, she points out that Miaoxin was uninterested in the rehashing of someone else’s insight.
And, this is the important point, I think. How often am I stopped short by my own teacher for doing exactly this; she is not interested in my re-hashing of someone else’s experience.
I would venture to say that it wasn’t even the answer, in words, that Miaoxin gave to the monks that made a shift—it was how she elicited the action that helped them cut through. It was the “come forward” and in this coming forward, their intellects were halted—this movement helped strip them of an old, stale answer—freed themselves of someone else’s answer that they had not directly experienced. She got them to move out of their heads and into their bodies—into the here and right now. She offered an invitation to break free.
I didn’t catch this the first time I read it. I was caught too, in pondering the words and trying to “solve the puzzle…”
Grace Shireson notes that Miaoxin’s disapproval of pilgrimage as a spectator sport reminds us that Zen’s core teaching is to “get off the sidelines and jump in!”
Her commentary portrays an example of confidence by illustrating both the factor of her experience combined with her innate trust in herself, as follows:
Grace writes about a time when she was around 16 years old and at the beach. She arrives to see six adults yelling out instructions—from the shore—to a child—about 8 years old, frozen with fear and starting to panic at the ferocity of the waves. Grace states that she loved the ocean and trusted its unpredictable rhythm with her body. She did not trust the family “whose spoken advice separated them from actual contact, and suspected the same were true of the boy who continued to panic.” Fed up with the “recycled wisdom” of the adults, she immediately jumped in and swam to boy and says that her actual presence coming to meet him was all he needed to remember that he, too, could swim.
Of course, when we think about developing confidence, we think of direct experience as a factor. You can’t develop confidence, for example, in doing a complicated procedure by merely reading about it. You can’t really develop an ease in any task, by watching others do it. I see that I’ve developed confidence in certain skills because I have jumped in there and done them. I had to be willing (or at times forced! for instance, at work) to take the risk to jump in and do it.
As I was reading this, I, too, recalled a favorite saying of my own. It was from the book, “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.” It was a moving and funny novel about the complex bonds between mother and daughter. Siddha, the daughter, frets often about right decisions and is hesitant about life in general. Her mother, aggravated with this constant fear of getting out of the sidelines, says, “It’s life Siddha—you just get on the beast and ride!”
That jumping in allows for actual experience, which then develops a trust in self. It’s the experience that allows for the confidence to develop. Then it’s in your bones instead of in your head. It’s like the difference between being in Paris versus seeing someone else’s photos of it. Once you’ve been there, then when you see the photos, your whole body instantly recognizes it. You remember the feel of it, not the imagined version of it.
If we have done something time and time again though, we do need to keep our awareness, our mindfulness, intact, or it could become routine or dull. For instance, our chanting may become like this. My teacher says that her teacher, Sojun Mel Weitsman, instructed everyone to pay attention to every syllable when chanting, and not miss a beat, moment by moment.
So, the more I worked with this koan and the commentary, preparing for my talk, the more I really felt the task, the true job of a teacher, and what she/he is trying to do for a student.
How do we let go of living in our heads? How do we move out of our doubt around our innate buddha nature while trying to give answers that we think are the “right ones?” I see how our teachers are trying to help us break free of this—just as Miaoxin was doing with the seventeen monks.
Years ago, during a Dokusan with Jack Duffy Roshi, he asked a question, a koan, a chance to trust my own buddha nature. “The bird song—is it coming towards you, or are you going towards it?” My intuition instantly told me, “NO!” It was clear and immediate! But my little self didn’t have the confidence in my deeper truth to answer. My intellect took over and I wrestled with the question logically, trying to give “the right answer”—even though I knew it was wrong! I took one of the trap answers, meanwhile my inner self was screaming NO! NO!
He knew why I answered as I did. He knew where I was at in my practice at that moment. He also had faith that I innately had the wisdom, as we all do, but wasn’t able to trust enough to bring it forth just yet.
There is more to developing confidence in the dharma than just our experience. I think it is this trusting of our buddha nature, of our innate wisdom. It is having a deep faith in it. And, an ability to risk more and more, over time, in allowing it to have a voice. Often, instead, we allow our fear that we are so used to carrying, and all the conditioning factors that go into this fear, to override that wisdom, and we allow our intellect to “come up with an answer”—even though we know that it is wrong!
We can exercise this innate wisdom. This is what our practice does. The more we are aware of the workings of our habit energies, the more we can see through them and lessen the power they have in us. A fresh answer is available to us at every given moment.
Grace ends her commentary with the following paragraph directed at all of us: It isn’t that the wind doesn’t move; it isn’t that the banner doesn’t move; it isn’t that the mind doesn’t move. What moves me?? [perhaps; what allows me to trust my own wisdom in the moment?]
And, she also invites us to ask the question, “How do you meet the ancient teachings in a way that keeps them alive?”
[break outs] So, these last two questions are the questions of the day! Please get into small groups and choose one of these questions to discuss.
