[Note: We actually arrived in Lhasa today. But if I start writing about Lhasa, I’ll forget the things I want to say about previous destinations, so just hold tight on Lhasa.]

This post is about Zhaozhou (Joshu in Japanese), a Zen master who lived from 778 to 897. (That’s 120 years, by the way). We visited the place where Zhaozhou, at the age of 80 settled down and taught for 40 years. Many of Zhaozhou’s teachings are still used today.

“Someone asked, ‘Master, will you enter Hell?’

The Master answered, ‘[I’ll be] the first to enter it.’

The man said, ‘Why should a great and good [Zen] master enter Hell?’

The Master said, ‘Who would transform you through the teaching if I had not entered it?'”
[From Roaring Stream, p. 101]

We had high expectations when we arrived at Bailin Temple (also known as Cypress Grove Temple), having spoken with Andy Ferguson, who has taken several Zen groups here to participate in the practice schedule. (See, for example, the description of the 2007 pilgrimage by the Ancient Dragon Zen Gate group at http://www.ancientdragon.org/sangha/news/more/china_trip)

But as it turned out, ours was an experience of Falling Through the Cracks. Just by chance, shortly before we arrived, an international Buddhist Studies tour group had arrived and the attention was focused (quite rightly) on this previously organized tour.

So first we had trouble finding the person who could check us in to guest quarters, then here was a problem making photocopies of our passports. We were told that we would be able to meet the abbot, that there was an evening meal available and that we could participate in evening meditation. But when the time came for each of these events, we had no one to show us where to go or what to do. So we simply enjoyed the evening air and reflected on the folly of building up expectations.

The breakfast routine was similar enough to what we had experienced at the Fourth Patriarch’s Temple, so that went fine. I did find that the Chinese seem to be able to eat about four times as much rice gruel as I would normally eat (this was the one food item for which you didn’t indicate an amount you wanted — you just accepted (a gigantic) ladle-full in your bowl. I gulped it down, still taking longer than anyone else. Suffice it to say I was well fed that morning.

One thing I remember at Bailin was overhearing the translation of a Zhaozhou dialog by a monk guiding the tour group. It was the famous Mu koan, but I had not appreciated the 3rd and 4th lines before:

“A monk asked, ‘Does a dog have buddha nature?’

The Master replied, ‘Mu’ [meaning ‘No’]

The monk continued, ‘But if all sentient beings have the buddha nature, then why not a dog?’

The Master said, ‘It’s your own mind that discriminates.'”

And that gem made our trip Bailin Temple worth it.

So the next day we were off to visit Zhaozhou’s bridge, the oldest stone arch bridge in the world (completed in 605 CE). In a famous interchange with a monk, Zhaozhou used the bridge (“Donkey’s cross, horses cross”)” as a metaphor for the mind being a bridge for everything.

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