Another Green Question

Greensmile, author of an excellent blog I strongly recommend that you check out every day (I do), recently asked about a Zen story I posted back on June 25 (he's really digging deep into the archives now). So that you, gentle reader, don't need to go back that far (besides, there's a lot of crap back there that I'd just as soon not bring up again), here's the story:

Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

"Come on, girl," said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

"I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"

Greensmile asks, "Is the point of the story of Tanzan and Ekido to illustrate that the karma of an action arises from the intention that brings the action? [meaning that it is at least possible to pass among the material pleasures of the world without getting lost?]"

I agree that this story is primarily about intention, but not so much about the effects of intention (i.e., karma), although that's in there for sure, but about the origin of intention. To me, the story recalls the famous line in the Diamond Sutra, "the mind that sticks to nothing" (legend has it that Hui-Neng, the Sixth Chinese Patriarch, became enlightened upon hearing just this single line, despite no previous Buddhist training).

The key to the story is in the rather humorous last line ("I left the girl there. Are you still carrying her?"). Not to belabor the obvious, but Tanzan is talking about carrying the girl, not in the arms, but in the mind.

One of the fundamental teachings of the Buddha is that of co-dependent origination - that is, everything arises out of other causes. The classic version of this teaching relates a 12-fold chain of causation, starting with ignorance and leading up through desire and to birth and ultimately to old age and death (the "cause" of old age and death being birth - everyone who dies at some point had been born). I don't want to go into the whole chain here now, but the relevant part to the story of Tanzan carrying the girl is that ignorance (avidya) conditions impulse or intention (samskara).

The ignorance referred to is not only ignorance of the impermanence and emptiness of all things, but also the delusion that there exists a separation between self and others. Karma, sometimes good, sometimes bad, arise out of the impulses or intentions conditioned by such a dualistic mind, but where there is no intention, there is no karma. In enlightenment, there is no ignorance, and therefore intentions conditioned by ignorance do not arise in a state of enlightenment. The impulses and intentions that do arise in an enlightened mind are unconditioned by ignorance and are therefore spontaneous and natural and free.

So, when Tanzan sees a lovely girl in a silk kimono trying to cross a muddy road, he simply and spontaneously (Tanzan says "Come on, girl," at once) picks her up and carries her across. With no distinction between himself and others, he is keeping the mud off of his silk kimono, the one that pleases his eyes, as much as her silk kimono. Or, to put it even better, he acts simply to protect a silk kimono with no possessives. It's as natural a reaction as catching a ball that's tossed his way. And when he puts her down, it's over, that's it, the enlightened mind sticking to nothing.

But for poor unenlightened Ekido, his ignorance conditioned an impulse, which he resisted, mainly by remembering rules and orders ("Monks don't go near females"). And his clinging mind stuck to the event - he couldn't let go of it - and finally has to be mildly rebuked by Tanzan ("Are you still carrying her?").

The point of this story is to show how an unfettered, spontaneous mind works in enlightenment, how it clings to nothing, and by contrast, how it is ignorance that clings to monastic rules of conduct (and teachers and scriptures, etc.) . As for how to approach the material pleasures of the world, that is better illustrated by this little story, one of my personal favorites:

There was an old woman in China who supported a monk. She had built a little hut for him, let him live there for over 20 years, and fed him while he was meditating. Finally, she wondered just what progress he had made in all this time.

To find out, she obtained the help of a beautiful young girl rich in desire. "Go and embrace him," she told her, "and then ask him suddenly, 'What now?'"

The girl called upon the monk and without much ado caressed him, asking him what he was going to do about it.

"An old tree grows on a cold rock in winter," replied the monk, somewhat poetically. "Nowhere is there warmth."

The girl returned and related what he had said.

"To think that I fed that fellow for 20 years!" exclaimed the old woman in anger. "He showed no consideration for your need, no disposition to explain your condition. He need not have responded to passion, but at least he should have evidenced some compassion."

At once, she went to the hut of the monk and burned it down.