The Self and the WAY - Teacher of the Way.
 

その道に入らんと思う心こそ我身ながらの師匠なりけれ
"Sono michi ni iran to omou kokoro koso wagami nagara no shisho narikere."

Sen no Rikyu, the „father" of the Way of tea, is believed to have written a number of poems, the Rikyu Hyaku Shu. These one hundred „main"-rules turned up about a hundred years after Rikyu´s death (+1591). They are probably a collection of experiences of the tea masters who passed on the way of tea in Rikyu´s spirit. Most of these poems are a kind of mnemonic rhymes, that refer directly to the practical side of the tea Way, but some are of value for every WAY. The poems´ metre follows in some kind the Renga poetry, but is not kept exactly. The authors did not want to compete with another art but create in the spirit of their way. The collection starts in the following way:

Sono michi ni iran to omou kokoro koso wagami nagara no shisho narikere

The poem speaks abut the WAY (Do) which here appears as „michi" because of the metre. The heart wishes (omou kokoro) to admit (iran) the way or to enter the way. Exactly this (koso) heart is ‘wagami nagara no shisho’ - the teacher of the self. Shishô - the Master Actually shisho 師匠 is not the teacher but the spiritual „master". A famous shisho for example was Daito Kokushi 大灯国師(Great Radiant Teacher of the Country), the founder of the Daitokuji in Kyoto, the temple where the great Zen master Ikkyû lived and taught and with whom Rikyû had a special relationship. A teacher, a sensei先生, is somebody who lives before or in advance, one who has already followed the WAY and is therefore able to pass on the experiences he had in following the Way, but he does not necessarily have to be a shishô.. In normal linguistic usage a mathematics teacher is also a sensei. He imparts the knowledge and the skills to use mathematical formulas and thus passes on his experiences in this michi, this art. The teachers of the way of tea call themselves sensei, too. They always stress the fact that they can only pass on technical skills to their students. It needs more than to master technical skills that the sensei passes on to be able to follow the WAY wholeheartedly. But Rikyû’s poem does not speak about the passing on of skills. The Shishô is a Shishô of „wagami nagara" 我身なが, the self. But actually nobody exists who can lead on this way. Nobody else but one’s own heart that ardently wants to get involved in this way is the teacher of the self.
The „Self"
But what exactly is the self? Doesn’t it say in Zen, to find oneself is to forget oneself? The following story is told in the Chinese book Zhuangzi (Dschuang Tse):

Nanguo Ziqi sat reclining on his armrest, looked up to the sky and exhaled slowly.. He was empty and far away and seemed to have lost his companion. Yangcheng Ziyou who stood at his side said: ‘What is this? Can we really succeed in making our body like withered wood and our spirit (the heart) like cold ashes? He who now reclines on his armrest is no longer the same one who reclined before!’ Master Qi said: Ìt is good that you ask. I have ‘ just lost my self (ego). Do you know this? You hear the sounds of flutes of men but not the sounds of flutes of earth. You hear the sounds of flutes of earth but not the ones of the sky!

At first Nanguo Ziqi looks up to the sky. It is as if he would get measurements from there, from the open width of the empty sky before he exhales and lets go. He grows empty like the wide open sky. But who is the companion he has lost? Is that what tells him incessantly: "You should ...you must...you mustn’t....”. Or is it what says: „My knees hurt, my back aches, my breath stops and doesn’t flow,..."? Nanguo Ziqi says “I have just lost my self”. At any rate he seems to hear only the sounds of flutes of men as long as his companion is there. When he has lost this companion who interrupts him all the time his body becomes like withered wood and his heart-spirit like cold ashes, in Chinese Daoism a common picture for the awakened wise men. Wood is one of the five elements. Green wood struggles. It splits the earth to push up to the light; it grows up bigger and stronger. But it has to suffer as metal splits the wood and reduces it again in size. Wood feeds the fire. Fire stands for passion but also for the bright light of revelation. Fame shines bright in the light of the fire. But the fire needs the wood and consumes it. If no new nourishment grows up again, bright fame dies, as the fire consumes all fuel elements. Dead wood is no longer part of this cycle of reciprocal nourishing and consuming, splitting and being split. When the fire of passions in the heart has burnt out, the heart is like cold ashes. Not only the fire has gone, but all colours that represent the burning of the consuming passions as well, the heart grows ash - coloured - colourless. The wise man can hear the ‘sounds of the flutes of the sky’ only, when the personal passions are burnt out and the fire and the colour of the heart has died. Before his heart has been numbed by the sounds of the flutes of men. Only when he ceases to let himself be numbed by the hectic and wild, mostly discordant sounds of flutes of men can he hear the sounds of flutes of earth. And only when his ego has gone, his ‘companion’, who constantly interrupts him, can the wise man listen to the sounds of the sky, that exist by themselves, that nobody creates.
The wishful heart - omou kokoro
But it says in Rikyu’s poem that the omou kokoro 思う心 is the Shishô, the true master. Omou kokoro is the thinking heart. In Chinese it is the heart that thinks - not the brain. The heart also ‘thinks’ mathematical or logical problems. But in this case it is called rather ‘kangeru’ 考える and not omou. Omou denotes more the wishing, the hoping, the intimate musing as poets or lovers muse. Chin-Shi 沈思, ‘deep sinking-in thinking’ is meditation. A Chinese proverb says: 飲水思源 nomu mizu - omou minamoto
nomu mizu - omou minamoto Drink water - Think the beginning (the source). When you drink water, think of the beginning, the spring.

This thinking is not just a taking into account that there is a spring or a beginning. This thinking is a commemorating full of gratitude, a gratitude that guards the source and stays always obligated to it. But do the feelings and sensations guide the heart? Is the Shishô the heart that feels and experiences in such a way? Will one become „Self" if one is guided by one’s feelings and not by the mind? But in Zhuangzhi´s story it says that the heart is like cold ashes. The fire of passionate wishes and desires is dead. Only then is he able to hear the „flutes of the sky"
The Admitting - Heart and the WAY

Murata Shukô’s „Kokoro no fumi"

Murata Shukô, the precursor of Rikyû in the way of tea already warns to accept the heart as teacher. In his famous letter „Kokoro no fumi", the ‘Letter on the Heart" Murata Shukô’s first sentence was:

Nothing will hinder you more in practicing this way (道 Do ) than self-satisfaction and sticking to the self. It is totally wrong to be envious of an expert (kôsha) and to look down on a beginner (shôshin no mono). One should rather look for the company of experts and realize that one needs their guidance and one should try to help beginners.

 

In his second sentence Murata Shukô mentions a fundamental problem on the WAY: envy. The heart is envious of experts and full of contempt for beginners. The ordinary heart is filled with negative wishes and feelings. But so-called positive feelings can also be in the way. A fervent wish to get ahead on the way can lead to despair if the hoped-for result fails to materialize. If the initial fire of enthusiasm dies the heart that is like cold ashes does not remain. There remains the disappointment - the disappointment of having chosen the wrong way or simply the wrong teacher. Murata Shukô ends his letter with the famous sentence:

 

kokoro no shi to wa nare, kokoro wo shi to sezare
Become the master of your feelings and thinking (kokoro: heart), Let not your feeling and thinking be your master.

The ordinary heart with all of its anxieties, wishes and troubles cannot be a good Shishô. The mostly completely unknown impressions and feelings lead the heart astray. But in his poem Rikyû does not mean this ordinary heart when he says that the heart of oneself should be the master.

The wishful thinking of the heart does not point towards just any thing but towards letting in the WAY or rather to get involved with the way: michi ni iran / to omou kokoro. The heart wishes to enter the way. Or does it wish to get the way into itself? But which way is meant? Sono michi: その道 that way. One should think it were one of the many different ways, in Rikyû’s case naturally the Cha-Dô, the way of tea. But the meticulous separation of the various artful ways or the ways of Bushi are only the result of later days. Sono その is pointing the way. It is not with me nor with you. Sono is distant from me and you. Sono michi means that heart and way are completely distinct. The heart is longing for the way that is something strange, something different. .This demonstrates an initial stage. The heart is not yet on the way but it would like to get there. If the heart lets itself in for the way, it can only do it by admitting the way into itself. Heart and way turn into one. They are like mirrors. One mirrors the other. The heart that by mirroring has become one with the way has left behind everything personal. It is the WAY itself. This heart is the wagami nagara no shisho, the teacher of the „self", that is no longer a self. If one lets oneself in for the way completely, one utterly forgets oneself and becomes one with the way. In the Teeweg one forgets oneself, to be completely with the things. Heidegger called this to be utterly be-Dingt. If I pick up the teaspoon, I am totally with the spoon, no, I no longer exist, there is only the spoon. The more I forget myself, the more there is the teaspoon. The more there is only the teaspoon, the more I am myself. NOW! NOW to be with the things. Then there is no before and no after. Tea-students often ask: „When do I have to...?" The answer is: "Not NOW!" When I play Shakuhachi and think about the moment when I have to play this one difficult note that I always miss, the heart has fallen out of this oneness.

Beginners heart
The beginning situation that is meant in Rikyû’s poem is not changed if the heart lets itself in for the way only once. Has the WAY been let into the heart once, the beginning situation does not end. Every time the heart has to open itself for the way again. One does not stop to be in this initial situation when one becomes an advanced student. The situation gets more and more difficult for the advanced student. The beginner has a big advantage over the advanced one insofar as he is carried by an initial enthusiasm, that the advanced student may have lost on his way. Additionally there are the problems Murata Shukô mentioned in his letter: the envy of those who are more advanced and the contempt for the beginners. As long as we are still at the stage of wanting to learn, we are still not masters of the WAY.
Let us always retain the heart of the beginners. Can there be anything more enjoyable than to prepare a cup of tea lost to the world? Now to clean the Natsume, now the teaspoon. Now to put the tea into the bowl, now to fill it up with water.
How fragrant the tea smells!
But it is not I, who prepares the tea. Carried by the WAY there is nothing else but the tea.
This is not a ‘ceremony’ of preparing tea, this is CHA - ZEN, tea - Zen.
This is not I who plays the bamboo, the breath pours forth and the sound is heard. This is not music from the Shakuhachi, this is CHIKU-ZEN, the bamboo- Zen.
There is a short story of Confucius and his student Yan Hui in the Zhuangzi.

Yan Hui said: „Hui makes progress!"
Kongzi said:"What do you mean by this?"
Yan Hui:"Hui has forgotten considerate behaviour and justice."
„Not bad! But that is not enough!"
The next day the two met again and Yan Hui said:
„Hui is getting better!"
„What do you mean by this?"
„Hui has forgotten the rites and the music."
„Not bad! But that is not enough!"
Later the two met again and Yan Hui said:
„Hui is getting better."
„What do you mean by this?"
„Hui is sitting there and forgetting."
Kongzi said full of emotion:"What do you mean by ‘sitting and forgetting?’
Yan Hui said:"Letting drop his limbs, ceasing to look and see, leaving his form, his knowledge, becoming one with the big passage, that means ‘sitting and forgetting’"
Kongzi said:
„Having become one means to have no preferences, to be changed by this is not to be unchangeable any more. You really are praiseworthy. Please let me be your student."
(Chapter 16.9)

One time the monk Nambô had written down his conversations with Rikyû. We know from his writings how Rikyû saw the WAY. Nambô finished his record in praising Rikyû:

Everything Rikyû taught us about the way of tea, is at the same time the realization of the way of the founders and of Buddha. He shall be praised, praised!"
茶の道かとをもへば、即、祖師仏の悟道なり。殊勝々々。

*Note:
After the story in the Zhuangzi the present grandmaster of the Urasenke (XVI. Generation) received in 1982 by Rôshi Nakamura Sôjun of the Daitôkuji the Buddhist name Zabô-sai, „sitting and forgetting".
Translation: Paul Podjed

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