On Ummon's Sickness

The late American Zen teacher John Daido Loori said that the monk who asked Joshu how he could throw away nothing was afflicted with Ummon's sickness.

Ummon said, "When the light does not penetrate freely, there are two kinds of sickness. One is when all places are not clear and there is something before you. Having penetrated the emptiness of all things, subtly it seems like there is something—this too is the light not penetrating freely."

"When the light does not penetrate freely" refers to all of us in our deluded state, even those who have attained some amount of insight and awakening.  "When there is something before you" points to the duality of subject and object - as long as we cling to the concepts of "something" and "you" as being two separate and opposite entities, we are still in the dark.  We are still confusing the myriad names and forms with the real substance.

But Ummon looks into it deeper.  "Having penetrated the emptiness of all things," that is, recognizing that all names and forms are devoid of an independent existence, "subtly it seems like there is something," he teaches.  This is the sickness, this is the light still not fully penetrating.

"Subtly it seems like something" refers to us grasping onto the substance, the cookie dough, as a "thing."  Joshu's monk was still clinging to a concept of "nothing" and missed Joshu's reminder that "nothing" is still just another shape and form.  This is still not enlightenment, Ummon taught, this too is the sickness.  Even existence and non-existence, the cookie dough and nothing, are still names and forms. 

When we're grasping onto an understanding that is still grasping, and by thinking "it's this way" or "that way" we're still mistaking our understanding for an immovable, fixed "thing."  Even if our understanding is correct at that moment, clinging to that understanding is to fix name and form to it, and makes it yet another delusion.

"Not knowing" is not holding onto any such fixed views, but encountering each moment as it comes and accepting it for what it is, without assigning it name and form.  "Not knowing" is letting go of even the self, is letting go of "nothing," is letting go of "letting go."