A Question in the Zen Texts
I
My friend opened a thin yellow volume of that marvellous text which proclaims at sight the patience of the Buddhist engraver. Movable Chinese types may be very useful; but the best of which they are capable is ugliness itself when compared with the beauty of the old block-printing.
“I have a queer story for you,” he said.
“A Japanese story?”
“No,—Chinese.”
“What is the book?”
“According to Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters of the title, we call it Mu-Mon-Kwan, which means ‘The Gateless Barrier.’ It is one of the books especially studied by the Zen sect, or sect of Dhyâna. A peculiarity of some of the Dhyâna texts,—this being a good example,—is that they are not explanatory. They only suggest. Questions are put; but the student must think out the answers for himself. He must think them out, but not write them. You know that Dhyâna represents human effort to reach, through meditation, zones of thought beyond the range of verbal expression; and any thought once narrowed into utterance loses all Dhyâna quality.... Well, this story is supposed to be true; but it is used only for a Dhyâna question. There are three different Chinese versions of it; and I can give you the substance of the three.”
Which he did as follows:—
II
—The story of the girl Ts’ing, which is told in the Lui-shwo-li-hwan-ki, cited by the Ching-tang-luh, and commented upon in the Wu-mu-kwan (called by the Japanese Mu-Mon-Kwan), which is a book of the Zen sect:—
There lived in Han-yang a man called Chang-Kien, whose child-daughter, Ts’ing, was of peerless beauty. He had also a nephew called Wang-Chau,—a very handsome boy. The children played together, and were fond of each other. Once Kien jestingly said to his nephew:—“Some day I will marry you to my little daughter.” Both children remembered these words; and they believed themselves thus betrothed.
When Ts’ing grew up, a man of rank asked for her in marriage; and her father decided to comply with the demand. Ts’ing was greatly troubled by this decision. As for Chau, he was so much angered and grieved that he resolved to leave home, and go to another province. The next day he got a boat ready for his journey, and after sunset, without bidding farewell to any one, he proceeded up the river. But in the middle of the night he was startled by a voice calling to him, “Wait!—it is I!”—and he saw a girl running along the bank towards the boat. It was Ts’ing. Chau was unspeakably delighted. She sprang into the boat; and the lovers found their way safely to the province of Chuh.
In the province of Chuh they lived happily for six years; and they had two children. But Ts’ing could not forget her parents, and often longed to see them again. At last she said to her husband:—“Because in former time I could not bear to break the promise made to you, I ran away with you and forsook my parents,—although knowing that I owed them all possible duty and affection. Would it not now be well to try to obtain their forgiveness?” “Do not grieve yourself about that,” said Chau;—“we shall go to see them.” He ordered a boat to be prepared; and a few days later he returned with his wife to Han-yang.
According to custom in such cases, the husband first went to the house of Kien, leaving Ts’ing alone in the boat. Kien, welcomed his nephew with every sign of joy, and said:—
“How much I have been longing to see you! I was often afraid that something had happened to you.”
Chau answered respectfully:—
“I am distressed by the undeserved kindness of your words. It is to beg your forgiveness that I have come.”
But Kien did not seem to understand. He asked:—
“To what matter do you refer?”
“I feared,” said Chau, “that you were angry with me for having run away with Ts’ing. I took her with me to the province of Chuh.”
“What Ts’ing was that?” asked Kien.
“Your daughter Ts’ing,” answered Chau, beginning to suspect his father-in-law of some malevolent design.
“What are you talking about?” cried Kien, with every appearance of astonishment. “My daughter Ts’ing has been sick in bed all these years,—ever since the time when you went away.”
“Your daughter Ts’ing,” returned Chau, becoming angry, “has not been sick. She has been my wife for six years; and we have two children; and we have both returned to this place only to seek your pardon. Therefore please do not mock us!”
For a moment the two looked at each other in silence. Then Kien arose, and motioning to his nephew to follow, led the way to an inner room where a sick girl was lying. And Chau, to his utter amazement, saw the face of Ts’ing,—beautiful, but strangely thin and pale.
“She cannot speak,” explained the old man; “but she can understand.” And Kien said to her, laughingly:—“Chau tells me that you ran away with him, and that you gave him two children.”
The sick girl looked at Chau, and smiled; but remained silent.
“Now come with me to the river,” said the bewildered visitor to his father-in-law. “For I can assure you,—in spite of what I have seen in this house,—that your daughter Ts’ing is at this moment in my boat.”
They went to the river; and there, indeed, was the young wife, waiting. And seeing her father, she bowed down before him, and besought his pardon.
Kien said to her:—
“If you really be my daughter, I have nothing but love for you. Yet though you seem to be my daughter, there is something which I cannot understand.... Come with us to the house.”
So the three proceeded toward the house. As they neared it, they saw that the sick girl,—who had not before left her bed for years,—was coming to meet them, smiling as if much delighted. And the two Ts’ings approached each other. But then—nobody could ever tell how—they suddenly melted into each other, and became one body, one person, one Ts’ing,—even more beautiful than before, and showing no sign of sickness or of sorrow.
Kien said to Chau:—
“Ever since the day of your going, my daughter was dumb, and most of the time like a person who had taken too much wine. Now I know that her spirit was absent.”
Ts’ing herself said:—
“Really I never knew that I was at home. I saw Chau going away in silent anger; and the same night I dreamed that I ran after his boat.... But now I cannot tell which was really I,—the I that went away in the boat, or the I that stayed at home.”
III
“That is the whole of the story,” my friend observed. “Now there is a note about it in the Mu-Mon-Kwan that may interest you. This note says:—‘The fifth patriarch of the Zen sect once asked a priest,—”In the case of the separation of the spirit of the girl Ts’ing, which was the true Ts’ing?”’ It was only because of this question that the story was cited in the book. But the question is not answered. The author only remarks:—‘If you can decide which was the real Ts’ing, then you will have learned that to go out of one envelope and into another is merely like putting up at an inn. But if you have not yet reached this degree of enlightenment, take heed that you do not wander aimlessly about the world. Otherwise, when Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind shall suddenly be dissipated, you will be like a crab with seven hands and eight legs, thrown into boiling water. And in that time do not say that you were never told about the Thing.’... Now the Thing—”
“I do not want to hear about the Thing,” I interrupted,—“nor about the crab with seven hands and eight legs. I want to hear about the clothes.”
“What clothes?”
“At the time of their meeting, the two Ts’ings would have been differently dressed,—very differently, perhaps; for one was a maid, and the other a wife. Did the clothes of the two also blend together? Suppose that one had a silk robe and the other a robe of cotton, would these have mixed into a texture of silk and cotton? Suppose that one was wearing a blue girdle, and the other a yellow girdle, would the result have been a green girdle?... Or did one Ts’ing simply slip out of her costume, and leave it on the ground, like the cast-off shell of a cicada?”
“None of the texts say anything about the clothes,” my friend replied: “so I cannot tell you. But the subject is quite irrelevant, from the Buddhist point of view. The doctrinal question is the question of what I suppose you would call the personality of Ts’ing.”
“And yet it is not answered,” I said.
“It is best answered,” my friend replied, “by not being answered.”
“How so?”
“Because there is no such thing as personality.”