Master Xu Yun's Encounter With John Blofeld.

[Shi Da Dao]

Nan Hua Monastery - Northern Guangdong.

'The present Abbott was no other than the Venerable Xu Yun, who was believed to be well over a hundred years old, though still able to walk as much thirty miles a day. He was renowned all over China as the greatest living Master of Zen; so I was delighted to hear the unexpected news that he had just returned after an absence of several months spent in a distant province. Not long after my arrival, I excitedly followed the Reverend Receiver of Guests to pay my respects to this almost mythical personage. I beheld a middle-sized man with a short, wispy beard and remarkably penetrating eyes. He was not precisely youthful-looking as I had been led to expect, but had one of those ageless faces not uncommon in China. Nobody could have guessed that he was already a centenarian. Finding myself in his presence, I became virtually tongue-tied and had to rack my brains for something to say, although there was so much I could profitably have asked him.

At last, I managed to ask:

'Is this famous monastery purely Zen, Your Reverence?
'Oh yes,' he answered in a surprisingly vigorous voice. 'It is a great centre of Zen.'
'So you do not worship Amida Buddha or keep his statue here?'
The question seemed to puzzle him, for he took sometime to reply.
'But certainly we keep his statue here. Every morning and evening we perform rites before it and repeat the sacred the sacred name while circumambulating the altar.'
'Then the monastery is not purely Zen,' I persisted, puzzled in my turn.
'Why not? It is like every other Zen monastery in China. Why should it be different? Hundreds of years ago there were many sects, but the teachings have long been synthesised - which is as it should be. If by Zen you mean the practice of Zen meditation, why, that is the very essence of Buddhism. It leads to a direct perception of Reality in this life, enabling us to transcend duality and go straight to the One Mind. This One Mind, otherwise known as our Original Nature, belongs to everybody and everything. But the method is very hard - hard even for those who practise it night and day for years on end. How many people are prepared or even able to do that? The monastery also has to serve the needs of simple people, illiterate people. How many of them would understand if we taught only the highest method? I speak of the farmers on our own land here and of the simple pilgrims who come for the great annual festivals. To them we offer that other way - repetition of the sacred name - which is yet the same way adapted for simple minds. They believe that by such reptition they will gain the Western Paradise and ther receive divine teaching from Amida Buddha himself - teaching which will lead them directly to Nirvana.'

At once reluctantly and somewhat daringly I answered: 'I see. But isn't that a kind of - well, a sort of - of - er - deception? Good, no doubt, but - '
I broke off, not so much in confusion as because the Venerable Xu Yun was roaring with laughter.
'Deception? Deception? Ha, ha, ha, ha - ha! Not at all. Not a bit. No, of course not.'
'Then, Your Reverence, if you too believe in the Western Heaven and so on, why do you trouble to teach the much harder road to Zen?'
'I do not understand the distinction you are making. They are identical.'
'But - '
'Listen, Mr P'u. Zen manifests self-strength; Amidism manifests other-strength. You rely on your own efforts, or you rely on the saving power of Amida. Is that right?'
'Yes. But they are - I mean, they seem - entirely different from each other.'

I became aware that some of the other monks were beginning to look at me coldly, as though I were showing unpardonable rudeness in pertinaciously arguing with this renowned scholar and saint; but the Master, who was quite unperturbed, seemed to be enjoying himself.
'Why insist so much on this difference?' he asked. 'You know that in reality there is nought but the One Mind. You may choose to regard it as in you or out of you, but "in" and "out" have no ultimate significance - just as you, Mr P'u, and I and Amida Buddha have no real separateness. In ordinary life, self is self and other is other; in reality they are the same. Take Bodhidharma who sat for nine years in front of a blank wall. What did he contemplate? What did he see? Nothing but his Original Self, the true Self beyond duality. Thus he saw Reality face to face. He was thereby freed from the Wheel and entered Nirvana, never to be reborn - unless voluntarily as a Bodhisattva.'
'Yet, Reverence, I do not think that Bodhidharma spoke of Amida. Or am I wrong?'
'True, true. He did not. But when Farmer Wang comes to me for teaching, am I to speak to him of his Original Self or of Reality and so on? What do such terms mean to him? Morning and evening, he repeats the sacred name, concentrating on it until he grows oblivious of all else. Even in the fields, as he stoops to tend the rice, he repeats the name. In time, after a month, a year, a decade, a lifetime or several life times, he achieves such a state of perfect concentration that duality is transcended and he, too, comes face to face with Reality. He calls the power by which he hopes to achieve this Amida; you call it Zen; I my call it Original Mind. What is the difference? The power he thought was outside him self was inside all the time.'

Deeply struck by this argument and anxious, perhaps, to display my acquaintance with the Zen way of putting things, I exclaimed:
'I see, I see. Bodhidharma entered the shrine-room from the sitting-room. Farmer Wang entered it through the kitchen, but they both arrived at the same place. I see.'
'No,' answered the Zen Master, 'you do not see. They didn't arrive at any place. They just discovered there is no place for them to reach.'
This reply made me feel proud of myself. It seemed I had grasped the point correctly, for the Master had condescended to answer with one of those Zen paradoxes which force the hearer into even deeper understanding. Hs broad smile was enough to show that he was really satisfied with my reply.
'After all,' I added complacently, 'it's all a matter of words.'
Instead of nodding approvingly, the Venerable Xu Yun turned away from me suddenly and began speaking on quite a different subject to one of his disciples. His withdrawal was so pointed that, for a moment, I felt hurt as by a harsh snub. Then I saw the point and almost laughed aloud. 'Of course that's it,' I said to myself. 'The significance of that turning away is as clear as clear can be. It means, "On the contrary, it is all a matter of no words - silence." Of course that was it.' I prostrated myself and walked out to find the room allotted to me for the night.'

Extracted from: Wheel of Life Page 87 – 90.
By John Blofeld.