[From the Genjokoan:] [The] Zen Master of Mt. Magu was waving a fan. A monk approached him and asked, “The nature of wind is ever present and permeates everywhere. Why are you waving a fan?” The master said, “You know only that the wind’s nature is ever present—you don’t know that it permeates everywhere.” The monk said, “How does wind permeate everywhere?” The master just continued waving the fan. The monk bowed deeply.
The genuine experience of Buddha Dharma and the vital path that has been correctly transmitted are like this. To say we should not wave a fan because the nature of wind is ever present, and that we should feel the wind even when we don’t wave a fan, is to know neither ever-presence nor the wind’s nature. Since the wind’s nature is ever present, the wind of the Buddha’s family enables us to realize the gold of the great Earth and to transform the [water of] the long river into cream.
The “nature of wind” is buddha-nature, and “waving a fan” is spiritual practice. The essence of the question being discussed here is this: “Zen teaches that everything in the universe is part of one, seamless reality, and this reality when perceived directly is complete, luminous, and precious. Not only that: The universe is complete, luminous, and precious and you’re intimately part of its perfection whether you realize it or not. Realizing it for yourself is nice, but ultimate reality isn’t dependent on your realizing. So we don’t have to do anything, right?”
This is not a philosophical question, at least not as it’s presented by Dogen. This is about what really matters in life. It’s about how you should live, how you should live out your aspirations and embody your natural compassion.
Should you work on developing wisdom, insight, and acceptance so you can obtain some measure of peace and happiness no matter what’s going on around you – or even within you? Should you adopt philosophies, viewpoints, and practices that let you “rise above it all,” and maintain perspective and equanimity when life gets tough? Should you let go of your desire for things to be better in the world and in your own life? After all, desire causes suffering, so if you can just accept things as they are, suffering ceases.
Or, should you devote yourself to the practice of the bodhisattva? A bodhisattva vows to save all beings using whatever means she can. Some of her practice involves developing insight and acceptance, but it also involves trying to end greed, hate, and delusion – especially within herself, but also in the world. A bodhisattva strives tirelessly to perfect himself, even knowing that’s an impossible goal. He practices energetic generosity, and engages fully with the world. The bodhisattva path is also an essential part of Zen.
But what is a bodhisattva doing, trying to save beings and aim for perfection when everything is already part of one, seamless reality which is complete, luminous, and precious? Another Zen teaching is emptiness: everything and every being is ultimately empty of inherent, enduring, independent self-nature. Instead, everything is completely interdependent and arises intimately with everything else in the universe. So ultimately there are no separate beings to save, no separate bodhisattva who is fulfilling a vow, and no such thing as perfection.
Oh lord, what’s a person to do? I’ll remind you again: This is not a philosophical quandary. It’s about whether to accept your anger problem or try to fix it. It’s about whether to tap into something eternal so you aren’t overwhelmed by the climate crisis, or whether to devote all of your extra energy to saving the world. It’s about whether you should deeply recognize how someone you love has his own path in life, and how you can’t ultimately prevent him from experiencing suffering, or whether you should do whatever you can to teach, support, and influence this person so they can have a better chance at happiness.
Of course, the Zen answer makes no rational sense. You should do both. You should strive to wake up to the fact that Unified Reality is complete, luminous, and precious, and nothing is lacking. AND you should do everything you can to make the world a better place. In the ancient Buddhist Sutra, The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, it’s said:
“Wise Bodhisattvas… reflect on non-production [emptiness],
And yet, while doing so, engender in themselves the great compassion,
Which is, however, free from any notion of a being.
Thereby they practice wisdom, the highest perfection.
But when the notion of suffering and beings leads him to think:
‘Suffering I shall remove, the weal of the world I shall work!’
Beings are then imagined, a self is imagined, –
The practice of wisdom, the highest perfection, is lacking.”
(Translation by Edward Conze)
How does a bodhisattva – how do we – pull this feat off? Helping, but not thinking of helping… working actively in the world but not conceiving of ourselves… this may seem like an ideal that only highly realized beings are capable of.
But this is a wrong understanding of Zen and of our lives. It’s not an amazing feat to devote yourself to benefiting all beings while at the same time embracing the fact that all Reality is ultimately seamless, complete, and luminous. What takes a convoluted maze of words and concepts to describe is simply our lived experience. You can furrow your brows all day trying to comprehend the significance of the master waving the fan, but if he takes you by surprise and you experience his fan waving directly, Reality is immediately revealed, fresh and intimate.
Think about it this way: I can sit here explaining and explaining, and you can sit there pondering and trying to understand. Or I can get up, come over to you, take your hand, and look into your eyes. You’ll probably be uncomfortable, although also strangely drawn toward this unusual expression of intimacy. For others in the room, the whole thing will seem rather dramatic, maybe weird. Very quickly, everyone will start thinking about how to interpret this scene, wondering what message they’re meant to take away from it.
But there’s no message. For an instant, as I hold your hand and look into your eyes, we break out of our mental constructs and into direct experience. Most of us get shy a moment later when we are confronted like this; our minds scuttle back to what we know, trembling a little before the enormous, bright expanse of reality. The most brilliant human concepts, theories, and philosophies are woefully inadequate for describing and predicting our actual lived experience.
In our actual, lived experience, there is no problem with devoting ourselves wholeheartedly to practice and benefitting all beings even when we know that getting caught up in ideas of perfection, self, benefit, and beings just gets in the way. It’s entirely possible to work for change without becoming attached to the results.
And it’s not just possible, it’s necessary. The complete, luminous universe is only complete and luminous because it includes our effort. How does the nature of wind, or buddha nature, permeate everywhere? Through our waving the fan. Not because we wave a fan, as if there is no wind until we do so (or, no buddha nature until we awaken it through practice). The moment of our fan-waving is a perfect example of the nature of wind permeating everywhere.
The moment when we place our shoes straight, or say a kind word to someone, or vow to release our anger and anxiety, we are enacting universal completeness and luminosity. When we see how this is so, we realize how precious this universe is (the gold of the great earth) and transform our lives (the long river) into something nourishing and delightful.
Click here to read Domyo’s entire series of commentaries on the Genjokoan.
