Tenryu-ji. Norris Brock Johnson
Bukkoku sternly told Musō that he must not expect others to provide the awareness he sought.
Musō then returned to live on mountains and within forests, this time traveling to the far north of Honshū. He built shelters, within which he lived. He sat within nature, often on what he termed “meditation rocks” (see Chapter 8, “Sitting in the Garden”).13 Musō vowed not to return to speak with Bukkoku until he had experienced the awareness he had sought from his teachers.
WANDERINGS OF LIGHT AND DARK
For more than twenty years, Musō lived mostly amid forests and mountains.14 During this time, he wrote of several initial experiences of awareness of Buddha-Nature. It was said that “once a person awakens to the field of Original Nature, he sees that Buddha-Nature, mind, ‘thusness’ [shinnyo] … as well as … the great earth, mountains, rivers, grass, tiles, or stones, are all the field of Original Nature.”15 During this phase of his life, Musō’s teachers, his examples of enlightenment, were trees and water and mountains.
He became aware of the subtle manner in which sunlight and shadow flowed as the surface of bamboo, ebbing to and fro with the wind. One evening, sitting at fireside near the Okita River, Musō contemplated flames flickering in the darkness. At moments, it would appear as if there was no distinction between wood and flame. Between light and dark.
Musō began to experience everyday existence as Buddha-Nature in that “living in this way … everything right and left, everywhere, was full of existence. And he heard the voice of existence itself.”16 Musō, though, felt that he had not yet experienced the awareness experienced by Shākyamuni under the Bodhi tree. Musō wrote of one experience where he fell asleep during a long session of zazen and, upon waking, became ashamed of having fallen asleep. Yet at that moment also, he began to question distinctions such as sleeping and waking, remembering and forgetting. He felt that if he had truly not made a distinction between wakefulness and sleeping, he would not have experienced the suffering of shame at having fallen asleep.
Musō began to watch the ebb and flow of his thoughts. He felt that he still was making distinctions that did not exist, except within his clouded mind. Distraught, he thought of returning to Bukkoku Kokushi to announce his defeat when, unexpectedly, he experienced a signal Zen Buddhist state of awareness.
The year was 1305. One night, while staying with friends, he rose from a long session of zazen “and stepped out into the garden of the house in which he was staying [my italics].”17 He sat for some time under a tree in the garden (again, reminiscent of Shākyamuni sitting under the Bodhi tree). Rising from his meditation, Musō moved to retire to the house. Darkness obscured his way, and he tripped over a piece of the roof that had fallen to the ground and … he fell to the ground.
A simple, ordinary act. Yet, Musō’s response was to … laugh, in surprise. In this sudden, spontaneous laughter Musō perhaps felt he had experienced the state of awareness Zen Buddhists term satori. Importantly for us, if so, he had experienced satori within a garden.
Satori is held to be awareness of “pure existence,” existence experienced directly and not filtered through ego-consciousness. “Original Nature [Buddha-Nature] is pure existence,” and experience of pure existence often is associated with overwhelming calmness, joy, and peace of heart and mind.18
And laughter. Buddhists often say, “laughter is the cancellation of ego.”19 In Zen Buddhism, “a smile or laugh … cancels the world of opposition … laughter rescues the mind.”20 Musō “fell through” his walls of expectation and illusion, and awoke to existence-as-it-is (shinnyo). He experienced existence-as-it-is without texts or ritual. He experienced existence-as-it-is … within nature.
It was the custom at the time to compose a poem upon the initial experience of what was believed to be satori, and Musō wrote:
Year after year
I dug in the earth
looking for the blue of heaven
only to feel
the pile of dirt
choking me
until once in the dead of night
I tripped on a broken brick
and kicked it into the air
and saw that without a thought
I had smashed the bones
of the empty sky21
Musō had been preoccupied with what we would term dualisms: “earth”/ “sky,” for instance. Existence was experienced as obstacle, as suffering, until a chance stumbling shattered illusion such that “the activity of consciousness is stopped and one ceases to be aware of time, space, and causation.”22 Musō’s experience spontaneously shattered “bones,” the conventional manner in which he had been experiencing illusion-as-reality. In a garden, Musō initially experienced “this state that we call pure existence.”23 We read, “you can appreciate … the beauties of nature with greatly increased understanding and delight. Therefore, it may be, the sound of a stone striking a bamboo trunk, or the sight of blossoms, makes a vivid impression on your mind … This impression is so overwhelming that the whole universe comes tumbling down.”24 Often, in laughter.
Musō journeyed back to Kamakura to relate his experience to Bukkoku Kokushi. Bukkoku acknowledged that Musō’s experience in the garden indeed had been satori and, in the traditional rite of succession, Bukkoku presented Musō with his Inka (印可, Seal of Enlightenment), one of his robes, and a portrait of himself.
GREEN MOUNTAINS BECOME YELLOW
After having received a seal of succession from the venerable Bukkoku Kokushi, Musō’s fame spread widely and people increasingly petitioned to study with him. Yet he continued to feel that “the great earth, mountains, rivers, grass … stones, are all the field of Original [Buddha] nature.”25 In 1312, Musō and several fellow priests went to live within forests and to practice sitting amid mountains. During this period, Musō founded Eihō-ji in 1314. Mostly alone now, throughout 1315 he lived around the Tōki River area.
Word reached Musō that Bukkoku Kokushi had died on December 20, 1316. Upon hearing of his teacher’s death, Musō wrote “green mountains have turned yellow so many times … When the mind is still the floor where I sit is endless space.”26 Musō’s Buddha-Mind appears now to be able to peacefully attend to what conventionally is conceived of as death in a manner quite different from his prior turmoil over the death of the venerable priest Gyōren. Musō lived the next several years within mountains and forests.
In 1325, at the request of Go-Daigo, Musō temporarily came down from the forest mountains to became abbot of Nanzen-ji in Kyōto. Returning to Kamakura in 1327, he was appointed abbot of Zuisen-ji. In 1329, monks petitioned Musō to become abbot of the influential temple of Engaku-ji. Recall that in 1333 Go-Daigo returned to Kyōto from exile in Chiburi. At this time, as well, the emperor presented himself to Musō as a pupil desirous of studying Zen Buddhism.27 Go-Daigo subsequently installed Musō as first abbot of Rinsen-ji, a small Buddhist complex near the present-day Temple of the Heavenly Dragon.
Musō was three times honored as Kokushi (国師, National Master). He received the honored title of Kokushi from Go-Daigo, as well as the title of Supreme Enlightened Teacher (正覚心宗国師, Shōgaku Shinshū Kokushi) from emperors Kōgon and Kōmyō. Musō also became known as Teacher to Seven Emperors (七朝帝師, Nanchō Teishi).
Vengeful Spirits and a Sky of Dream
The Temple of the Heavenly Dragon will be born amid violence and betrayal, suffering and death, as well as from the devotion of people to aesthetics, nature, and spirituality. In addition, interestingly, the temple will be conceived amid belief in the reality of dreams as a tangible presence affecting the sensibilities and decisions of people of influence.
In