The Love Between Parent and Child
Photo by Tim Mossholder
In this talk on a koan about the love between parent and child (teacher and student), Zuisei speaks of the uniqueness of this relationship and the unconditional trust and love that it’s based on—a love grounded, in turn, in the aspiration for liberation, for awakening.
In addition, Zuisei speaks of the uniqueness of koans as spiritual tools that help us cut through dualistic thinking so we can clearly see things as they are.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard. See below for transcript.
Transcript
Transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
May the merits of these teachings benefit all beings. May these words help and not harm. May they clarify and not confuse. May they self-liberate, leaving no trace of me.
Caoshan (曹山本寂) was once asked by a student, "A child went back to her parent, why didn't the parent pay attention to her?" Caoshan said, "It is quite natural, just like that." The student then said, "Then where's the love between parent and child?" Caoshan said, "The love between parent and child." "But what is the love between parent and child?" asked the student. Caoshan said, "It cannot be split apart, even when hit with an axe."
This is a koan from the 300 Koan Shobogenzo. It's a collection of koans, paradoxical anecdotes and phrases traditionally used as objects of meditation, that Master Dogen put together in the 13th century. In the 20th century, my first teacher, Daido Roshi, translated these koans with Kaz Tanahashi, who's a translator, artist, peace activist, and teacher. Then Roshi added a commentary, a capping verse, and footnotes. I worked as an editor on this manuscript, and it took about 10 or 15 years of Sundays and sesshins with Daido giving a talk on each one of these koans. It was a huge labor of love.
I remembered this koan last Saturday when Jitsuko and Julia Kals sat Tangaryo to become students. I've always loved this koan because I think it captures very beautifully the relationship between teacher and student. In the literature, it is sometimes referred to as the relationship between parent and child or host and guest. To be clear, this is, of course, the relationship between two adults. It's really more like a close mentor/mentee relationship. A way to think about it is really to focus on the love, the love between parent and child or any two people who are accountable to one another—the bond that is formed between two people, in this case, who are committed to the path of awakening.
Most of you are familiar with koans but just a brief word about them. We say that a Dharma talk is "dark to the mind, but radiant to the heart," which is a quote by Evelyn Underhill, the author of Mysticism. Daido really liked it and repeated it pretty much every Sunday before the Dharma Discourse. [It] applies most fittingly to koans. A koan is not meant to be understood intellectually. Although you can, once you figure out the language and the imagery, you can understand it. But the moment that you do—it dies. A koan has to be realized. It has to be seen. It has to be lived because that's the only way it will actually help to transform our lives. Which, of course, is the only thing they are meant to do.
[A] koan really has nothing to do with testing our understanding of our knowledge. It's meant to jolt us, to propel us, or to let us rest into a new way of seeing ourselves and seeing the world. Shugen Roshi once called them a unique spiritual tool. I think he's right. I've had my concerns and my doubts about koans. I've certainly had questions about my own training and the gaps in the training, due to nobody else's fault. Yet, I do agree, I think they really are a unique spiritual tool.
So, as I move through this, don't try to understand it. Just as you shouldn't try to understand that karma moves forward and backward in time as we talked about a few weeks ago and during the precepts class. It does. It doesn't just move forwards and backwards. In fact, it moves in every direction. Karma does. That is the Buddha's realization. So, the question becomes, how do we see that? How do we make that teaching our own truth? In this koan, how do we see the truth of the love that Caoshan is pointing to? It's not like regular love. It's not what we usually think of when we think about love. So what is it? A good place to begin is to think about the student asking the question in the first place. What are they trying to understand that they bring this up? We have to put ourselves in their shoes, make their question my question, your question.
So a student goes to Caoshan. Caoshan was a dharma heir of Dongshan,and together they founded the Caodong school which is part of our lineage. Lineage, to me, gives weight and longevity to these teachings. In our case, the lineage stretches back 2,500 years, all the way to the Buddha. It’s not just a course that somebody designed last year and it caught on. It makes me trust these teachings—not every teaching, and not blindly. When I'm able to see a koan clearly, if I'm able to express it in a live way, then I'm seeing and expressing what my teacher and his teacher and their teachers, all the way back, were able to see. And, hopefully, all the way forward as well, hopefully I am able to see what teachers and students will see, generally speaking.
So, when I was sitting with a koan during my training, I knew that thousands, millions of people had sat with it before me and would hopefully sit with it after me. That meant something. I didn't feel so stuck, so alone. I would think that if Zhaozhou saw it—and Moshan and Iron Grindstone Liu, Dongshan, and Rengetsu and all of the many, many, many people whose names we don’t even know—if all of them were able to see it at some point, well, maybe then I can too. If they transformed their lives, maybe I can too. This is the weight, the power of having generation after generation see what you've seen and confirm it. That is really the mind to mind transmission that we speak of in Zen. Nothing actually goes from A to B. Nothing is actually transmitted, other than this confirmation.
Once you start to do these koans, you start to see they each have their own style. The lineages have their style, and the teachers have their style. Just as now, teachers have their style. They have their particular tilt, the way that they present the Dharma. Every teacher is doing exactly the same thing. They're trying to find the best way and the most conducive way to express what is so difficult to express. A way that students will understand, will see, will realize. Now we have teachers who teach Buddhism with psychology, with science, with literature, with art. [They are] looking for ways of expressing that will resonate with you, that will feel relevant, that will feel understandable, understandable in the sense that you may not know what this is saying exactly right now, but you have the capacity to see it and to integrate it into your life.
It's a wonderful and challenging process, the work of a teacher. Those of you who are working on koans, you think that you're uncomfortable. Well, let me tell you that my position is much worse. My teacher Daido Roshi would say to me, “You are just experiencing the pain of your stuckness. I'm experiencing your pain multiplied, all of your stuckness and I'm saying in my mind, ‘Come on, come on, come on, you can do it.” I'm pointing and cajoling. I give you all of these clues. You can't hear them, yet. I tell stories, I make comparisons just to see if I can nudge you? Can I get you to see what I've seen, the little bit that I have seen?
In these more classical koans, some of the teachers would just hit. Deshan was known for 30 blows of his stick. Whatever you say, he hits you. We can’t do that now because we will probably get sued. So you have it easy. Though I did threaten Norm last week. [Zuisei laughs] I wouldn't actually do it Norm.
Zhaozhou—his style was so sparkling. They called it “lips and mouth” Zen. In answer to a question, Zhaozhou put his sandals on his head and he walked away. He wasn't being eccentric. He wasn't being funny. He wasn't being mysterious. He was looking for the most alive way to express what he had seen. It did make it one of the most difficult koans in my estimation, the sandals on the head. He was looking, like an artist. He must have wondered, how do I say this so that it captures the whole thing? Hemingway wrote the ending to Farewell to Arms 49 times. Someone asked him, "Why?" And he said, "Because I had to get the words right." I had to say the whole thing, as much of it as I could. So think of it that way especially when you're having a hard time and you feel stuck. What you're working with is somewhat awkward and incomplete, yet the best that you have. An encapsulation of the whole picture—how do you say the whole thing? That's the challenge.
There are teachers like Fayan who just repeated a student's words, word for word, and [they] still were able to shift something, convey a world of meaning. There were teachers like Moshan and Iron Grindstone Liu, two women who commanded respect. Caoshan to my mind is gentle, grandmotherly. Here, he's showing a little bit of fang, but he's grandmotherly. He's really guiding you to it.
So a student asks him, "A child went back to her parents, why didn't the parent pay attention to her?"
Can you hear what's in the question? I hear, You said you would help me? Why aren't you helping me? Why do I read these stories of teachers turning their backs on the student? Leaving them to fend for themselves? Are you going to do the same to me? I hear a little bit of fear in the question. I hear doubt, uncertainty. I hear this student asking, Can I trust this person? Can I trust them to teach me in the way that they said they would?
If you take it literally, then you can imagine when a student goes to the teacher, and the teacher ignores them. There are, in fact, plenty of stories like that. There's the story of the teacher Bodhidharma and Huike, Huike having to cut off his arm to prove how serious he is. There are many stories of where the student literally goes up to the teacher and the teacher turns his back and faces the wall. Many stories of when a student would come to the Buddha and ask a question and the Buddha would not say a single word.
So, it could be taken literally. But of course there's always more, even there. A teacher is leaving the student on their own, trusting that they will see it on their own, trusting that they will find within themselves everything they're looking for. [The teacher] is cheering them on, silently sometimes, or out loud if needed, knowing this person is a Buddha and sooner or later, they will know that. Ultimately, each one of us has to realize it for ourselves and will. Everybody here knows that.
There's another way to see this line. That's what Daido Roshi's footnote to this line says.
The student asks, “A child goes to the parent, why does the parent not pay attention?” Roshi says, “They meet but they don't recognize each other.”
Why? Because it's dark where they meet. Because they are not really meeting. Because they're not two people. There is no each other.
The Five Ranks of Master Dongshan is about the relationship between absolute and relative, between ultimate truth and conventional truth. If you're wondering right now, what does this have to do with me? Just hold your question please.
The first verse is coming from within the absolute. The poem says:
In the third watch of the night,
before the moon appears,
they meet without knowing each other;
still held in the heart,
is the beauty of former days.
Before the moon appears, it's completely dark. They meet without knowing each other.
We've talked about this space. We've talked about the entry point that is zazen. We've talked about, in this place, there not being pain or pleasure, suffering, or the end of suffering, as the “Heart Sutra” says. The middle of the night is the time where the self has dropped away. It's a time when you realize you're not where you think you are. It's the time and the place where everything changes. Well, actually, not there, that ”time and place,” because there, there’s nothing. It’s just after there, when everything changes.
It is like two glaciers, floating, passing by each other. Then realizing afterwards, we are made of the same water. It's like that. It's what allows you to realize at a certain point, that we're not different, us two. When that happens, the student becomes the teacher. That's why Caoshan says it's quite natural. It's quite natural that the parent doesn't pay attention to the child. Because before you realize “we are made of the same water,” you think you need my help, because you don't know that I'm you and you're me and that everything I know, you know.
Once you realize that, everything else falls into place. It doesn't mean that we don't help one another, of course we do, otherwise we wouldn't be sitting here. But it's different. Then you really do realize that there's nothing to give and nothing to receive. Daido would tell how he would go to his teacher Maezumi Roshi and thank him profusely. "Thank you, Roshi, for so much that you've given me." Maezumi Roshi would just look more and more depressed, as if he'd failed. Exactly. Exactly. May I never pretend to give you something. If anybody tries to give you something, run.
But this student, he's not quite there yet. And so he says, "Well, then where is the love between parent and child?" And Caoshan says, "The love between parent and child."
There it is. In every meeting, in every interaction, in every word, every time we look into each other's eyes—tiny little screens notwithstanding. The love between parent and child is the love between parent and parent, child and child. Do we know that?
Then the student says, "But what is the love between parent and child?" Caoshan repeats it then says, "It can't be split apart. Not even with an axe."
It can't be split apart with anything. It is not split apart by distance, by time, or condition. There's nothing you can do to tear that love. We can hurt each other, of course. But we cannot hurt that love. And that's an important distinction. You can't split it apart. Not with the acts of doubt, of jealousy, anger, disappointment, confusion, or, or, or. Please remember that. This love is unconditional. That is why this relationship works. That is why this relationship is unlike any other relationship that I've experienced. It's not perfect in the way that we think of “perfect,” but it is whole. That's why it can't be split apart. That's exactly why. That's exactly why, when the student asks,"Where is the love between parent and child?" Caoshan just says, "The love between parent and child."
My love for Daido Roshi was fierce. It really was fierce. I would have done anything for him, within reason, because he would have done anything for me. He did. I've said many times before, with every action, every word, he was saying to me, you're a Buddha. Eventually, I believed him when I couldn't do it on my own. That is why we have teachers to begin with. In the beginning, even though the whole thing is about us and we're the only ones who can actually do it. It is hard. It is hard in the beginning. It is hard for a while. My love for Shugen Roshi is much quieter but it's bottomless. [It's] what you would feel for someone who brings you into being. Sometimes it is hard to be far away. And, it was also part of my growing up. I see that, I feel that.
So that love between parent and child. It is like karma, that ripple. Like that stone that's thrown into a pond, and it extends outwards. Hopefully if it's nurtured, protected, cared for, it grows until we know that it pervades everywhere. It does, regardless of what we do, but so that we can know it, so that we can feel it. Because it does buoy you when your confidence is flagging. It sets you straight when you've gone off track. Most importantly, it is constantly reflecting to you that unequivocally, unequivocally you are perfect, exactly as you are right now. If we never see each other again, starting tomorrow, I will still know that about you. Hopefully, you'll know that about you. Whether you sit or not, whether you see the koan or not, ever. Whether you think you're a good person or a good practitioner, it cannot be split apart. Not even with the most powerful tool I think there is, the human mind. Maybe it's not the most powerful tool, maybe the heart is the most powerful tool. Even a broken heart can't split it apart.
Explore further
01 : Caoshan’s Love Between Parent and Child with Commentary by John Daido Loori
02 : The Five Ranks by Dongshan Liangjie, translated by Heinrich Dumoulin, Thomas Cleary, William F. Powell, Chang Chung-Yuan
03 : The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s 300 Koans by Eihei Dogen, translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi and John Daido Loori