Master Xu Yun & Ananda Jennings.

Extracted from Empty Cloud The Autobiography of the Zen Master Xu Yun: Translated by Charles Luk and edited by Richard Hunn 1988 Edition – Pages 134-136.

My 109th Year – (1948-49).
In the spring, after the transmission of the Precepts at Nan-hua Monastery, I went to Canton to open Zhi-de’s Buddhist Hospital, when I expounded the Dharma. I then proceeded to Hong Kong, where I expounded the sutras at the Temple of Ci-hang Jin-yuan at Shatin, held a week of Pure Land meditation and taught the refuge-formula and five precepts at the Temple Zhi-lin, and held a meeting for repentance and reform at the Temple of Dong-lian Jue-yuan (Enlightenment Garden of the Eastern Lotus). After that I returned to the Yun-men Monastery. In the fifth month, Dharma-master Jia-chen passed away in Yunnan. In the autumn an American lady, Ananda Jennings, came and was given Precepts. On the occasion, a week of Ch’an meditation was held: she was filled with joy and eventually returned to the United States.

Note By Cen Xue-lu, Xu-yun’s Editor.
That year, Ananda Jennings, who had heard of the Master’s erudition and saintliness, expressed a desire to visit to China and call on him. He was informed of it through the Chinese and American consular services and replied that he would be delighted to meet her. When she arrived in Hong Kong, the Master was in Canton, where she went to see him. She said that her object was to study the Dharma; that her father was a Doctor of Divinity and that she herself studied comparative religion for twenty years. She had previously travelled in quest of the Buddha’s teaching and had been to India, where she lived in seclusion, later practicing the Dharma in retreat for four years in the West. After trying to help the cause of world peace for three years at the League of Nations, she felt that peace could only be found on a deeper, spiritual level. This search ultimately led her to the Highest Buddhadharma, which alone frees the mind from continually recreating the problem of war in its very attempt to solve it: “When the mind is at peace all wrong view disappear of themselves.

The Master then took Ananda Jennings to the Nan-hua Monastery to pay reverence to the Sixth Patriarch. After the refuge-taking ritual; she was given the Dharma-name of Kuan-hung (Great Vastness). A Ch’an meditation week was held on the occasion and those who came from the four quarters were numerous. When the Ch’an week began, the Master came to the hall and said to the meeting: “Speaking of this ‘thing’, it is fundamentally perfect; it neither increases in the holy state nor decreases in the worldly realm. When the Tathagata transmigrates through the six realms of existence, each realm hears of him and when Guan-yin (lit. ‘Regarder of Sound’) passes through the ten species of living beings, every one of them is in the state of “thusness”. If all is “thus”, what do you seek and why do you search for it? An ancestor said, “As soon as there is differentiation the mind is lost in the ensuing confusion.” Even before your boat was moored you already deserved to be given some strokes from my staff. What a pity! Instead of opening up your own store of treasure, you come to a thatched hut to fetch worthless straw. All of this is because of a single unenlightened thought. Since your mad mind does not stop, you are just like some one searching for another head while holding his own in both hands or saying that you are thirsty while there is water in front of you. Virtuous friends, why trouble to come here?... Why? Since you do not grudge spending your money on rush sandals, I shall not hesitate to open my foul mouth.

The master gave a Ch’an shout and said, “The Grand Old Man of Shakya has come. Tsan!”

Elder monks from other monasteries who were present, also spoke at the meeting. Below is a dialogue (Chin. Wen-ta; Jap. Mondo) between Ananda Jennings and a disciple of Master Xu-yun, called Qi-shi (lit. ‘The mendicant’):

Qi-shi: You have crossed the ocean to come here and have thus endured danger. What is the object of your visit?
Ananda Jennings: My object is to realise the Buddhadharma.
Q: One should be clear about the question of birth and death when one studies the Dharma; what is your opinion about ‘birth and death’?
AJ: Since fundamentally there is neither birth nor death, what is the use of formulating opinions which alone are ‘birth and death’?
Q: If there is neither birth nor death, what is the use of studying the Buddhadharma?
AJ: Fundamentally there is no Buddhadharma, and he who realises Dharma is Buddha.
Q: The Buddha possessed thirty-two characteristic marks and when he pressed his toes to the ground, the ocean symbol radiated; can you do this?
AJ: Both the ability to do this and the inability to do this pertains to phenomenalistic sophistry.
Q: Although your interpretation is profound and what you say is correct, the mere speaking of eating does not satisfy hunger., what, according to you, is the ‘Ultimate Sentence’?
AJ: The Ultimate has no ‘sentence’ and speech also has no basis, the non-thinking nature of enlightenment being free from verbiage of opinion and ideas.
Q: You have spoken of it in detail and every word of yours accords well with the Patriarch’s meaning. But the word ‘knowledge’ is the gateway to all kinds of calamity. Since you have entered by means of correct interpretation, may I ask you this: Without using words or speech, what is your fundamental face?
AJ: The Diamond Sutra says, ‘Anuttara-samyak-sambhodi is not Anuttara-samyak-sambhodi.
Q: It seems to be so, but the life-root can not be cut off by knowledge and views (consciousness). I hope you will look into this.
AJ: I have not had much opportunity to read the sutras. After my previous seclusion for four years, when I spoke to others, they all said that my words accorded with the Buddhadharma. In my opinion, understanding that does not derive from the mere reading of sutras seems not to belong entirely to human consciousness.
Q: That which does not derive from the reading of sutras and shastras but manifests during one’s meditation still belongs to the former wisdom which is also consciousness.
AJ: That Buddhadharma postulates true realisation but does not rely on human or cosmic consciousness.
Q: By not being bogged down in sutras and shastras and by not clinging to the self-nature, the ‘thusness’ of the Dao is everywhere and the truth prevails anywhere one may happen to be. It can expediently be called ‘The One’.

Ananda Jennings then accompanied the Master to Yun-men Monastery, where they paid reverence to the body of Master Yun-men, and where she stayed for about a fortnight. She said that she would spread the Buddhadharma after her return to America.’