“No, I have not.”
“How is it,” asked the monk, “that you have not?”
The answer was, “I do not understand Buddhism.”[f128][6.22]
Did he not really understand Buddhism? Or is it that not to understand is to understand? This is also the philosophy of the Kena-Upanishad.
The self-contradiction of the sixth patriarch is somewhat mild and indirect when compared with that of Dōgo (Tao-wu). He succeeded to Yakusan (Yüeh-shan Wei-yen, 751–834), but when he was asked by Gohō (Wu-fêng) whether he knew the old master of Yakusan, he flatly denied it, saying,[6.23] “No, I do not.” Gohō was however persistent, “Why do you not know him?” “I do not, I do not,” was the emphatic statement of Dōgo. The latter thus singularly enough refused to give any reason except simply and forcibly denying the fact which was apparent to our common-sense knowledge.
Another emphatic and unequivocal contradiction by Tesshikaku (T‘ieh-tsui Chiao) is better known to students of Zen than the case just cited.[6.24] He was a disciple of Jōshu (Chao-chou). When he visited Hōgen (Fa-yen Wên-i, died 958), another great Zen master, the latter asked him, what was the last place he came from. Tesshikaku replied that he came from Jōshu. Said Hōgen,
“I understand that a cypress tree once became the subject of his talk; was that really so?”
Tesshikaku was positive in his denial, saying, “He had no such talk.”
Hōgen protested, “All the monks coming from Jōshu lately speak of his reference to a cypress tree in answer to a monk’s question, ‘What was the real object of the coming east of Bodhi-dharma?’ How do you say that Jōshu made no such reference to a cypress tree?”
Whereupon Tesshikaku roared, “My late master never made such a talk; no slighting allusion to him, if you please!”