DHARMA TALKS BY ZEN MASTER SENSHIN:
The Buddha Holds Out a Flower
Today I’d like to talk about a koan, Case #6 in The Mumonkan or The Gateless Gate. The
Mumonkan is a traditional collection of 48 koans, which originated in China. Despite the fact
that these koans have had the daylights translated out of them, there is an essential meaning
or truth that comes through them all. As you read this koan, try not to focus on each word or
the meaning of each word, but sit with this koan, listen, feel, smell, taste or touch the deeper
meaning – the direction that the words are pointing to. As we look at this koan together,
steep yourself in it and let it marinate within your experience.
The koan is titled, The Buddha Holds Out a Flower. When Shakyamuni Buddha was at
Vulture Peak, standing in front of a large audience, he raised a flower. Everyone was silent.
Only Mahakashyapa broke into a broad smile. The Buddha said, "I have the True Dharma
Eye, the Marvelous Mind of Nirvana, the True Form of the Formless, and the Subtle Dharma
Gate, independent of words and transmitted beyond doctrine. This I have entrusted to
Mahakashyapa.”
In this story, the Buddha is standing in front of a huge assembly of monks, nuns, lay people,
cats, dogs, birds, trees, insects, the sun, blue sky – the cosmos in its entirety. Everyone is
waiting for the Buddha to give a discourse on the Dharma, what it means and how it
functions, but instead, he only raises a flower. Instead of words, there’s just this one simple
action of raising a flower. Mahakashyapa understood this action and spontaneously
responded with a smile. Thus began the transmission of the Dharma from teacher to disciple
that continues to this day with Mahakashyapa becoming the first patriarch in the Indian
Buddhist lineage.
What is this koan about? Throughout Australia, there are flowers
blooming everywhere bringing in this new season we call spring.
We have the good fortune to receive the amazing beauty of flower,
upon flower, upon flower, upon flower, such as the orange-coloured
hibiscus bush flowering out front or the pink and purple gerberas
on the altar.
Many trees are in flower as is the vegetable garden with the promise
of fruit and vegetables soon to follow. Also notice the shifting of the
air as all the different fragrances fill the morning with an incredible
aroma, sweet and succulent.
This koan is interesting on a number of levels and maybe we’ll just talk about one or two
today. An obvious point of this koan is in the simple action of picking up a flower and holding
it up before an assembly. Prior to saying one word of explanation, this direct action is
complete. There’s no need for gossip. There’s no need to interpret the meaning. There’s no
reason to think about it.
It was a pure yet subtle expression of the Buddha’s deepest mind, simply raising a flower. The
hibiscus flowers do not explain why they’re blooming – they just unfold their petals in a
glorious fusion of light and colour. The mango tree does not take out an advertisement in the
local rag taking orders for the mangoes that will soon be in season – it just produces fruit that
is then eaten by rats, bats, possums and delighted human beings! In the Buddha’s deep
wisdom and despite the lingering expectations of the audience, a flower was raised and out of
hundreds or thousands people present, Mahakashyapa received that flower with a smile.
How often do you see something beautiful, like a flower, and smile? There are flowers brought
and put in vases downstairs while other flowers are offered and put in vases upstairs. How
beautiful they are! Is there any need to identify them or to categorise them and say what they
are and to think about them? Can you just rejoice in the smelling, tasting, touching, feeling
and knowing that the flower itself is full and complete as was the gesture of the Buddha?
When we completely give ourselves to the moment at hand, nothing is lacking. The
experience of seeing a flower is full and complete. Mahakashyapa received this offering with a
broad smile – a true expression reflecting a deeper meaning of the Buddha holding a flower.
As we move through our lives, there is an enormous amount of room for miscommunication
and misunderstanding – people’s feelings get hurt and people get angry at each other – which
makes this direct communication so much more pertinent in our lives today. How difficult
we’ve made our own communication. How we’ve layered it with innuendo and cultural
ramifications and confused it and mixed it up with our likes and our dislikes. How
misunderstood we often feel.
As we practice, it is crucial to clarify and clarify one’s state of mind in order to realize one’s
full potential. Like the fledgling magpies that are being assisted by their parents and will soon
fly out their nest, as we sit with this koan the patriarchs too are assisting us in our experience
of our essential mind so that we can stand on our own two feet. If we cannot realize our full
potential, then each time we speak or gesture, we will only be serving our self-centred needs.
If we don’t realize our full potential completely, then words that we offer can be harmful,
hurtful and cause endless amounts of miscommunication. What a waste to spend our time
and energy gossiping about this or that. Consider for a moment the source from where the
chatter that we all listen to, particularly in the quietude of one’s own sitting, comes from. Who
is it that is listening to all those sounds?
The beauty of this koan is that it helps us to experience a deeper meaning in our
communication, which when we bring our awareness to it, we can utilize to enhance our
communication with others. Otherwise, we each know very well what happens when we hold
on to what we think is right or wrong, what we think that person should or shouldn’t say or
do, and the unnecessary conflict that invariably arises. It is dissatisfying and anxiety
provoking to miscommunicate with another. “I don’t feel heard. You didn’t understand me.
That’s not what I was saying,” and so on. Each of us is familiar with those kinds of reactions.
Is it really necessary to open your mouth and speak? Be careful here because if there is any
idea about what that means and we withhold speech that too can cause misunderstandings.
There is a vehicle through which communication occurs. What is that?
When we hear a koan such as this, ask yourself, who is the Buddha? What was entrusted to
Mahakashyapa? In order to bring a koan such as this into your life, one must first settle the
body. Let it be still. Follow your breath deep within the lower abdomen down in the belly so
that that endless chatter can quiet down. As you count each and every exhalation ask yourself,
why did the Buddha raise the flower? Why did Mahakashyapa smile? What was transmitted
between these two?
As we sit and consider this koan together, feel it through your body and become that deep
subtle message that occurs between all beings: a look, a smile, or a wave of hello or goodbye.
In that instant we know, we absolutely know what’s being
communicated, what has just transpired. But we don’t trust
our experience. We look to the left. We look to the right. We
don’t see clearly. We think people want something from us
and decide what we need to do to meet somebody else’s
expectations. We talk too much. Or remain silent too long.
We get stuck in our self-serving grasping for something
seemingly out of reach and forget how to feel, smell, or
know deeply. We follow our creation of conceptual stuff to
make up for our lack of knowing the deeper, subtle truth
that unifies each and every one of us.
All the Buddha did was raise a flower and Mahakashyapa smiled. Who is Mahakashyapa – a
mythological person that has got nothing to do with you or me? Each of these koans goes
beyond time and space and points to a deeper mind state that is not divided up into time or
space, ethnicity or gender. A koan, and one’s practice of sitting with it, is not divided up by
anything. Each of these koans we mull over together point directly to truth. It is up to each of
us to clarify our mind so we can know that truth. A flower. A smile. As one continues to
practice and the mind quiets, koans such as these are seen through. Doubt slowly eases its
grip and feelings of insecurity melt away. Words, such as these, are no longer necessary. Our
experience, in this moment, is complete.
This first transmission is named by the Buddha as a mind-to-mind transmission and
precludes dogmatic thought or words. The Buddha’s action and Mahakashyapa’s response
were aligned in a moment, which the Buddha acknowledged by stating, "I have the True
Dharma Eye, the Marvelous Mind of Nirvana, the True Form of the Formless, and the Subtle
Dharma Gate, independent of words and transmitted beyond doctrine. This I have entrusted
to Mahakashyapa.” What does that mean? Are we like a radio tower where we transmit and
receive signals to each other? Is the Dharma transmittable? Is it something that one gives to
another, shares with another, or meets in with another? What if Mahakashyapa said no, I’m
not interested? Thanks, but no thanks. What would happen to the Dharma then?
Is that what this koan is pointing to? That there is actually something called Dharma that is
handed out like candy to children that is received, and the wrappers are unwrapped and the
candy is chewed then swallowed, and please, may I have another? Do you see how we
habitually put the onus on another with our expectations and our demands thinking that
somehow we will then be fulfilled? This person has something that I don’t. If Mahakashyapa
had a stance like that, it wouldn’t have been possible for him to smile. The beauty and the
simplicity of raising a flower and smiling is that there is no stance. There is no ideological
platform that the Buddha was standing on and there was no lowly position of Mahakashyapa
as a student. In putting expectations on others we do ourselves a disservice, but more
importantly, we do a disservice to others.
Each of you knows within your own experience that the truth is deeper than just the words
that are used, the job that is attended to, and the relationships that are cultivated. Each of you
knows that there are deeper meanings in words and actions – the direction that the words
and actions are pointing towards. Try not to get stuck in an image of what words mean. Try
not to grasp at any conceptual images of what a koan, such as the Buddha raising the flower
and Mahakashyapa smiling, might stimulate. Try not to hold onto your feelings and your
extraneous thoughts. Simply follow the breath, counting each exhalation and focus your
attention on this koan just now. Do not allow yourself to be distracted by external sounds or
conditions, the thoughts that come and go: worrying about what’s going to happen when you
get home, if you get home, or are you already home?
The Buddha raised the flower and Mahakashyapa smiled. The Buddha articulated the
experience by saying, “I have the true Dharma Eye, the Marvelous Mind of Nirvana, the True
Form of the Formless, and the Subtle Dharma Gate, independent of words, transmitted
beyond doctrine. Thus I have entrusted to Mahakashyapa.” Was that necessary to say? These
words were for the benefit of those in attendance at that particular moment and continue to
resound within each of us today as we wonder about this non-dualistic dialogue now.
Of course, we have to use words and gestures in our communication just as we have to use
written words, but do those words arise out of benevolence for all beings or do they arise from
our attachment to our own point of view? If we can use words so that they benefit all beings, it
will serve to fulfil our true obligation as a human being. But words are simply the medium.
They are not the truth itself. They have sound, a form, a source and a particular vibration.
Each time you open your mouth, is it for the benefit of all beings or for your own selfish
desires?
The simplicity of the subtle exchange between the Buddha and Mahakashyapa is mind
boggling in the complexity of our day-to-day communication. But in truth, life is not
complicated. Our convoluted dualistic thinking causes complications in our relationships, in
our lives. But at our core, at our source, the truth is vividly clear. As we return to our practice,
we return to the breath and count each exhalation as we quietly sit wondering about the
Buddha’s flower and Mahakashyapa’s smile. In this way, we return to each moment over and
over again to experience what is, not what we interpret it to be. When we’re sitting, we just sit.
When walking, just walk. When eating, just eat. Use your practice to continually cut through
extraneous thought and assuredly, as that cutting happens, an intuitive and objective state of
mind will be experienced. Originally, our essential mind doesn’t move, doesn’t arise, nor does
it disappear. It’s always present, simply being. Our practice is, in part, to allow our deepest
mind states to become conscious and spontaneously express our essential nature in
accordance with the moment.
Over and over again, we use koans to cut through extraneous thought. We breathe and we sit
and we walk and we wash. We go to work and we help our families and our friends. We watch
the magpies feed their young and we see the flowers bloom, and the stars rise in the clear
night sky, and we feel the wind as it howls through the house. In each experience, we feel it,
we taste it, we touch it – know it just as it is without adding a single thing to it nor taking
something away. Tend to just this moment and accept it completely as it is. Until we can do
that, our practice is not full and alive. Until we can work with who we are in a real way, we
will continue to deceive ourselves and others by pretending we’re something that we’re not
because we’re too frightened to find out who we truly are.
Do you think Mahakashyapa was concerned about what other people thought who were in
attendance at this particular scenario at Vulture Peak? There was no awareness of self or
awareness of other or an idea of inseparability from self and other. Mahakashyapa smiled
with and for the entire universe, one great big smile.
As you find your consciousness drifting, simply return to counting your breath. When you
lose awareness, come back to your breath. While walking, come back to each step. Return to
the moment, giving yourself absolutely and completely to what you’re doing right now. When
you see a flower, see it. Smell the incense moving through you. When you eat, taste each
mouthful. Who is it that is eating? Is it really necessary to like it or dislike it or analyse it?
Over and over again, return to the simplicity of your experience and once tasted, touched,
seen, heard, or smelled an experience of gratitude arises – not for something or someone, but
a deeply thankful state of mind that is naturally aligned with all beings. Continually cut
through conceptual distractions and experience the activity of this moment.
Right here. Right now. When the extraneous activities of restlessness and grasping cease, the
Buddha’s flower raising and Mahakashyapa’s all-encompassing smile are deeply received.
Thank you.
*Two Zen Classics: The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Records. (2005). Translated by
Sekida, K., Shambala: Boston
Thank you to Jo Hae and Daelle for the beautiful pictures accompanying this
talk.