Night Boat

by Alan Spence

  I understand, said Munan. Nevertheless, this has been handed down for seven generations. It is a powerful symbol of the transmission. You should keep it as a reminder of what has gone before. Please accept it.

  Shoju took the book from his master, weighed it in his hand. It was heavy, the binding worn, the pages musty.

  It was winter and a fire was burning in an open brazier.

  I have no need for possessions, said Shoju, and he shoved the book into the burning coals.

  It was said that Munan had never showed anger in his life. But when he saw the book burst into flames, he shouted at Shoju in a rage.

  What are you doing?

  And Shoju shouted back at him.

  What are you saying?

  When I had finished telling the story, everyone remained silent.

  A teacher’s words are the dross of his teaching, I said. And writing them down reduces them even more.

  Nevertheless, said Chu.

  Ha! I said. Above the gate of hell is written Nevertheless . . . !

  Nevertheless . . . said Chu, persisting.

  Rascal! I said. There’s a gob of phlegm in your throat. Spit it out.

  I understand, he said, that if these talks are published there may be consequences which irk and vex you.

  Indeed?

  They may be read purely as works of literature, by scholars with no grasp of Zen. Their criticisms would be nitpicking, missing the point. This could be an irritant.

  Flies buzzing round dogshit, I said.

  At the other extreme, said Chu, there will be readers who do understand Zen and might feel challenged, even threatened by what they read.

  How so?

  When a great tree grows tall and towers over the forest, it is buffeted by high winds. And when a great man stands head and shoulders above everyone else, it may cause resentment and others may attack him.

  Fools, I said. They are only making a hell for themselves.

  And its name is jealousy, said Chu. And this is the second possible outcome that might displease you.

  On the other hand, I said.

  On the other hand, said Chu, which is another way of saying Nevertheless, there are disadvantages in not publishing.

  Such as?

  Now that the manuscript exists, the monks will want to read it. They will wheel and deal to get hold of it and make copies for themselves. This will take up valuable time and may lead to inaccuracies being compounded as copies-of-copies-of-copies are circulated.

  I knew I should have burned it, I said.

  I fear it’s too late for that, said Chu. The copying has already begun.

  So, I said. Publish and be criticised. Don’t publish and it will be copied anyway. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

  Ta Hui once destroyed the printing blocks for the Blue Cliff Record, said Chu. We want to make printing blocks and publish your talks. There are many ways of spreading the Dharma.

  This is a koan, I said. One I have to solve.

  Chu bowed. The two young monks looked anxious. Gentoku smiled. I sat for a while in silence. Then I took in a deep breath, let out a great sigh.

  Perhaps in the future, I said. If some scholar, some man of wisdom, were to look over the manuscript and correct it, I might reconsider.

  Thank you, said Chu.

  If I can help with the printing costs, said Gentoku, I would be honoured.

  Your generosity is exceptional, I said. Let us wait and see.

  Again he smiled, and bowed, and followed the three monks from the room.

  The story took some time to unfold – many months – and much of it was hidden from me. Ko and Jun secretly made another copy of the manuscript, and Chu corrected it then set out on a trip to Mino with the pages rolled up and concealed in his robe.

  In Mino he showed the script to the priest Joshitsu, exactly the kind of scholar I had mentioned. Chu asked the venerable Joshitsu if he would read the manuscript and make corrections, and he refused. Chu persisted, and again Joshitsu said no. A third time he asked, and the answer was the same. Finally, at the fourth time of asking, the priest said yes.

  If I had known this was going on, I would have been mortified and would have put a stop to the whole sorry business. But I did not know, and the story continued.

  Chu continued on his way, to Kyoto, and there, by chance – or as Chu would have it, by some kind of miracle – he happened to run into the bookseller Kinokuniya Tobei who lived in Numazu, near Shoin-ji, and had visited the temple to hear me speak. When Chu told him of his quest, Kinokuniya was excited and offered to help in any way he could. Before long he had found a publisher, the blocks had been carved and the book was being printed.

  A message was brought back from Chu.

  Burn incense. Press your hands in supplication and bow towards Kyoto. I will return home with this gift as if I had rescued a precious jewel from the jaws of the black dragon.

  At first I did not know what he meant, then Ko and Jun explained it all, told me the whole story. They were exuberant, but I remained silent.

  So it’s done, I said. There’s no way to stop this happening.

  No, said Jun. But it’s wonderful.

  I nodded and motioned for them to go. Gentoku was with them, and he hung back and waited, then approached me.

  So, I said. These Dharma talks I spewed out at your place will make men know me, and they will make men condemn me.

  Indeed, he said, smiling. But I think perhaps you are secretly pleased that this book will carry your teaching far beyond Shoin-ji.

  Perhaps, I said, and I laughed. Perhaps.

  When I held the book in my hand I was overjoyed and deeply moved. The venerable Joshitsu had written a preface, an introduction, a few words commending the book to all who would seek to understand the Dharma. I pressed the book to my forehead then placed it on the shrine and folded my hands, chanted the Daimoku in gratitude to all who had made it possible to bring this into being.

  DHARMA-THUGS

  T

  he damage had been done. With the publication of my Dharma Talks, my poison spread far and wide, as if carried on the wind. It polluted the rivers and streams, the very air, it entered minds and hearts everywhere. The numbers of monks and lay seekers beating a path to Shoin-ji to hear me speak grew into many hundreds, and the old place was overrun.

  At times there were almost a thousand visitors, invading the surrounding area as far as Mishima and Numazu in search of a place to stay. They slept in barns and outhouses, abandoned temple buildings, roofless hovels. By day they crammed, uncomplaining, into the grounds at Shoin-ji just to hear me open my mouth and rant.

  A handful of the resident monks worked tirelessly to make the place ready. For weeks on end they slaved and laboured, endured ten thousand hardships. They dug the rough ground and hauled away stones to clear an open area for the meetings. They sunk another well to draw water. They tended the vegetable garden with its crop of daikon and greens. They patched up the monks’ quarters, the kitchen, the bathhouse. They extended the privy, dug more holes to receive more piss and shit.

  They worked themselves to exhaustion, sweated bucket-loads. Every day they would start at dawn, the dew soaking into their robes, and they’d finish at night when the stars were out. Their backs ached, their hands were blistered and calloused, they could hardly stand. But the light in them burned bright, and every morning they were back out at dawn to start the work again.

  Old Kakuzaemon in the kitchen complained endlessly. There wasn’t even enough food for ourselves, so how could we deal with yet another flock of locusts passing through and stripping the place bare? There would be hundreds of them. How could he be expected to cope?

  They’ll bring their own food, I said, beg rice enough for their own needs.

  And who is to cook it? he asked. This old fool, that’s who. I’ll be sweating in the kitchen from dawn till dusk.

  I’ll get some of the monks to help, I said.

  Dolts, he said. Dullards. They
’d only burn the rice and ruin every pot.

  He was right, and could see I knew it.

  My faith in you is absolute, I said. And let’s see if someone can donate a bigger pot.

  If you get me a big enough cauldron, he said, I’ll throw you in there and reduce you to nothing, sweat you down to a stock.

  Now that would really spread my poison, I said.

  Miraculously, through hard work and grace and plain cussedness, when the crowds came, the old temple could cope. Somehow there was room for everyone, and just about enough rice to go round. For the most part, the visitors were earnest and disciplined, and grateful to be there, lapping up what I spewed out. They listened in concentrated silence. They made the best of the conditions. They queued patiently for their meagre rations, or to wash, or use the privy. They gave me hope for the future of the teachings.

  But there were a few young monks, a handful only, who were clearly stopping here as a way-station on their road to hell, intent on wreaking one last round of havoc before they went. Their behaviour was demonic.

  They formed themselves into a gang and swaggered about the temple grounds, trampling through the garden, shouting out to each other in loud voices.

  They congregated outside the meditation hall, bantering and singing, making a racket.

  They ignored admonitions from the senior monks, laughed in their faces and walked away.

  They pushed over the temple-drum, lifted down the temple-bell and left it on the ground, upside down.

  They swarmed over the hill behind the temple, clapping their hands and hollering, disturbing the peace.

  At night they would sneak out the side gate and into the village, ending up in some teahouse or wineshop then go on the rampage looking for women.

  They would roll back in the small hours, fall through a gap in the fence and wake everybody up, singing rude songs at the tops of their voices.

  They were appalling in every way. But they too had come here seeking enlightenment. I waited. It got worse.

  They took sharpened sticks and drove them into the ground in a dark corridor behind the monks’ hall, where folk would walk into them.

  In the same corridor they placed a huge water jar filled to the brim, so anyone passing through would knock it over.

  I waited. They were sentient beings, of a sort. I had vowed to save them.

  They upset Kakuzaemon by soaking the kitchen firewood so it wouldn’t catch and filled the room with smoke.

  Still I waited.

  They split and weakened the wooden plank over the privy so it would give and crack if someone sat down. One old monk was tipped into the pit and covered in filth. He stood before me, dripping, stinking.

  Enough. It was time to put a stop to this.

  I let it be known I was to give a very special lecture and these young monks were invited to sit in reserved seats in the front row. I knew I was taking a chance. If they reacted badly to my rant they might disrupt the meeting entirely. They might give full rein to their purely demonic nature, run riot and burn the place to the ground. Well then, that would be karmic retribution visited on me for daring to give these talks on the Dharma.

  I imagined myself heading off to the wilderness, regrouping with a few old cronies. We could gather up wood to light a fire, brew tea, talk. I could happily live like that, unburdened, carefree. Nevertheless . . .

  Nevertheless, I had responsibilities to the hundreds of seekers gathered here, to keep driving them on, through the barriers, as old Shoju had done with me.

  From time to time I’d overheard one or other of the resident monks describe me to some newcomer. They’d say I was imposing, or formidable.

  So my girth had increased and I resembled Hotei with his great pot belly. But this weightiness was perceived as impressive. One monk said I combined the shambling gait of an ox with the piercing eye of a tiger. So, tiger and ox – an intimidating combination. Let me use it now to my advantage.

  When everyone had gathered in the lecture hall, and these halfwit delinquents had taken their places at the front, braying and guffawing, full of themselves to the very brim, I strode to the platform and stood for a few minutes in silence, hands folded in gassho. Then I began.

  When Shakyamuni delivered his famous Flower-Sermon, he used no words. He simply stood in silence in front of an assembled multitude and held up a single flower. Maha Kashapa, seated in the front row . . .

  (I paused for a second, fixed the row of young monks with my gaze. One or two of them squirmed).

  . . . Maha Kashapa understood the teaching in an instant, and he responded by smiling. The Great One said that in that moment the transmission was direct, and immediate, and complete, and beyond words.

  If I were Shakyamuni, I said, standing before you today, I too could hold up a flower and make you see. But I am not Shakyamuni and I hold no flower.

  I held up my right hand, empty, open.

  See.

  Again I looked at the row of reprobates. One of them smirked. I continued.

  Nevertheless . . . I have always cherished the belief that by dedicating my life to spreading the Dharma, and by doing so unconditionally, I would bestow this gift on all who came to me, seeking.

  Hear.

  Turn the Dharma wheel. Beat the Dharma drum. Blow the Dharma conch. Let fall the Dharma rain.

  The Dharma rain falls on all alike, I said.

  I waited, the length of three heartbeats.

  However. These are dark days for the teaching. There are idle useless priests who take no responsibility for their students, sending them out into the world with no respect for the tradition.

  Unlike most of you who have come here determined to learn, these students are truly unteachable. In number they may be no more than a handful, but the damage they do is incalculable. They trample roughshod on the Dharma, grinding the precepts into the dust. They tarnish the reputation of the Order, and all of us suffer. Ordinary folk lump us all together and condemn us for the actions of a few. Can you imagine how the good townsfolk of Hara regard monks after this past week? We’ll be as welcome as pigs covered in shit, or scabby dogs oozing pus from their sores.

  Now I glared at each of the troublemakers in turn, fixed them with my tiger-eye. Most of them looked away. The smirker tried to stare me down but couldn’t hold my gaze, snorted and looked round him, scornful.

  Monks like these, I said, are an abomination. They appear and reappear from generation to generation. And rarely do they live out their allotted span of years without suffering retribution. In this life they will fall foul of humanity. In the next, they will be torn apart by demons and all trace of their existence will be swept away as they are consigned to the realm of the hungry ghosts.

  The smirker stood up, his face now a twisted demon-mask, a caricature. I had stationed a few of the younger, stronger monks in the row behind the troublemakers, in case the hooligans should become violent, and two of these guards also stood up, making their presence known. But they didn’t have to intervene. I directed my gaze once more at the young man and I felt my own features change, as if I too were wearing a mask, and I knew I had the terrifying aspect, the fierce intensity, of the ancient masters, of Bodhidharma himself, of some guardian deity presiding over the temple, protecting it. My third eye burned, as if it might reduce the young man and his gang of Dharma-thugs to ash. And he saw it, and so did the rest of them. And without a word, without once looking back, they made their way, shaken and pale, out of the hall and across the courtyard, through the main gate onto the Tokaido, out into the wide world, never to return.

  There was the beginning of a faint murmur in the hall, but I stilled it by raising my hand.

  Now, I said. Let me proceed with my Dharma talk.

  Later, outside, I saw old Kakuzaemon, scraping burned rice from the bottom of a pot.

  Well? he said. Have those rascals gone for good?

  For good or ill, I said.

  They won’t be back, then?

  They won�
�t, I said. But there will be others like them, as long as the Dharma is taught.

  Why are they even tolerated? he asked.

  Perhaps they thicken the plot, I said.

  And he laughed and went back to the kitchen, shaking his head.

  CHIKAMATSU

  T

  he Floating World, Ukiyo, was exactly that, another world, a world apart, separate and self-existent, alongside this, the mundane, the everyday, the real. Ukiyo was illusion inside illusion with its theatres and bars, teahouses and pleasure gardens, its cast of actors and musicians, artists, courtesans, geisha. Here were heaven and hell, the realms of gods and demons and hungry ghosts. And depending on how you spoke the word, Ukiyo could also mean the world of sorrow and suffering.

  Existence is suffering. Its cause is desire.

  And yet.

  I had been fascinated by theatre since my childhood, the sheer magic and wonder of it. The puppet show I saw with my mother, Nisshin walking unscathed through the flames. Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. That had been an awakening, an early moment of kensho, and it had been brought about by the drama. Expedient means.

  And that fierce old monk who had terrified me with his sermon on the fires of hell. That too was a kind of theatre, more expedient means, designed to jolt me awake. The power of the word. His third eye had blazed.

  The travelling players at Ejiri, performing The Forty-seven Ronin. The platform had collapsed and I’d held Hana in my arms. Scent of jasmine. The floating world.

  I was in Kyoto to deliver a lecture at Myoshin-ji, and my friend and benefactor Ishii Gentoku had accompanied me to discuss the possibility of publishing more books of my talks.

  More toxic dog-spew, I said. More unpalatable venom for readers to lap up.

  More of the same, he said. They can’t get enough of it.

  An unfathomable mystery, I said, and we laughed. We had known each other long enough, and he understood I was truly grateful to him.