Case 16 - Ching Ching’s Man in the Weeds
A monk asked Ching Ch'ing, "I am breaking out; I ask
the teacher to break in."
Ching
Ch'ing said, "Can you live or not?"
The
monk said, "If I weren't alive, I'd be laughed at by people."
Ching
Ch'ing said, "You too are a man in the weeds."
Reflections
The
heart of this koan is
the metaphor of a mother hen and her chick about to hatch from its
eggshell.
The way this works is that the chick tap, tap, taps on the inside
trying to get
out. The chick is unable on its own to tap through the shell, so the
mother hen
must be present and alert to when the chick is tapping. She then taps
on the
outside. Together tapping, the shell cracks and the chick emerges.
It’s
important that the mother hen taps exactly when the chick on the inside
taps.
If the mother hen taps too soon and cracks through the eggshell before
the
chick is ready to come out the chick will die. If the mother hen is too
late
and the chick is stuck in the shell, the chick will die. And if the
chick
begins to tap too early, before it is time to come out, the mother hen
will not
respond and the chick will die.
A
monk asked Ching Ching, "I am breaking out; I ask the teacher to break
in."
Ching
Ching said, "Can you live or not?"
The
monk said, "If I weren't alive, I'd be laughed at by people."
Ching
Ching said, "You too are a man in the weeds."
When
student and teacher
work together it is important, that the student works hard at her
practice.
That she tap tap taps on the shell of her koan until it cracks and she
gets it.
Without this tapping work she won't make it. It is also important that
the
teacher knows when the student is ready so that the teacher’s
tap, which may
take the form or a simple word, a smile, a shout, a hit with a stick, a
tap—realization may happen. So it is with teacher and
student. The key element
in the mutual tapping of chick and mother hen—of student and
teacher—is trust.
The role of the chick is to tap, tap, tap. Trusting that the mother hen
will
know when the chick is ready to emerge from the shell. Trusting that
the mother
hen will tap in response, thereby helping break through the shell,
releasing
the chick. The role of the teacher is to be sensitive to the tapping of
the
student. To know when the student is ready to emerge from his shell.
When the
student is ready to break through a koan, to receive a dharma-insight,
then the
teacher will tap. The important thing is mutual trust between student
and
teacher.
The
student must work hard
at cracking through her koan or whatever practice she is on. And the
teacher
must know when the student is ripe. Then realization is possible. So,
when it
works well, there's an intimate, subtle, and dynamic relationship
between
student and teacher. Student and teacher must "click." In the language
of this koan they must "tap."
The
second metaphor in the
koan is in Ching Ching's final words,
You
too are a man in the weeds.
One
can become lost and
entangled in weeds. Weeds can engulf, overpower and choke healthy
plants and
flowers. And so here we have the image of a man, stuck, engulfed in
weeds and
choking. Ching Ching is saying the monk is trapped in the weeds of his
thoughts.
A
monk asked Ching Ching, "I am breaking out; I ask the teacher to break
in."
Ching
Ching said, "Can you live or not?"
The
monk said, "If I weren't alive, I'd be laughed at by people."
Ching
Ching said, "You too are a man in the weeds."
What's
happening here? It
seems to me there's a little bit of arrogance on the part of the monk.
He is
telling his teacher,
“Hey!
Look at me! I’m ready!
“
“I'm
at the point of
enlightenment, perhaps even transmission.”
“Now
you need to recognize
it.”
It
doesn't work that way. It
should be the other way around. The teacher hears the tapping of the
student
and knows when the student is ripe. When the teacher knows the student
is
ready, then the teacher begins to tap. Here, in the koan, the
chick-monk is
declaring to all and sundry of the monks in the monastery,
I’m
ready!
I’m
enlightened!
I'm
breaking out!
I
interpret the koan in this
way because of Ching Ching’s question,
Can
you live or not?
It
seems to me that the
question is Ching Ching’s way of saying that he doesn't think
the monk is
ready. If Ching Ching thought the monk was ready then his question
would be
irrelevant. It was premature of the monk to say he is breaking out.
He's not
ready to break out. And the monk's response indicates that his question
was
made in a public forum. Possibly during a dharma-combat situation,
where the
monk was challenging the teacher, Ching Ching. The arrogance is clearly
displayed in the monk's statement that he'd be the laughing stock of
his fellow
monks if he was not found to be ready to break out. Ching Ching's
response,
You're
entangled in the
weeds of your ambition, places the monk right back into his eggshell.
More
growth required. More maturation needed.
A
monk asked Ching Ching, "I am breaking out; I ask the teacher to break
in."
Ching
Ching said, "Can you live or not?"
The
monk said, "If I weren't alive, I'd be laughed at by people."
Ching
Ching said, "You too are a man in the weeds."