Stepping Off The One Hundred Foot Pole

[This talk was originally given to Red Clay Sangha on July 15, 2012.]

The title of this talk alludes to a koan - a non-logical story, typically a conversation between a teacher and student in medieval China - used in Zen practice.  There are two versions in common usage: the first, in the collection of koans called the Gateless Barrier, is brief and pithy; the second, in the Book of Serenity, is longer.  It is that version of the koan I am centering this talk on, and which I will begin by reading you.

Introduction

The bodhisattva appearing as a maiden on the banks of golden sand was a special spirit.  Stuffing pastries in a crystal jar, who would dare to roll it?  Without going into the frightening waves, it's hard to find a suitable fish.  How about one expression of walking relaxed with big strides?

Case

Changsha had a monk ask Master Hui, “How was it before you saw Nanquan?"

Hui remain silent.  The monk said, "How about after seeing him?" 

Hui said, "There couldn't be anything else." 

The monk returned and related this to Changsha.  Changsha said,

The man sitting atop the hundred foot pole:

Though he's gained entry, this is not yet the real.

Atop the hundred foot pole, he should step forward:

The universe in all directions is the whole body.

The monk said, “Atop the hundred foot pole, how can you step forward?”

Changsha said, “The Mountains of Lang, the rivers of Li.”

The monk said, “I don’t understand.”

Chang said, “The whole land is under the imperial sway.”

Verse

The Jade man's dream is shattered - one call from the rooster

Looking around on life, all colors are equal.

Wind and thunder, with news of events, browse down to the hibernating insects;

Peach trees, wordless, naturally make a path.

When the time and season comes, laboring at the plow,

Who fears the spring row’s knee-deep mud?

In his abridged translation of and commentary on The Book of Serenity, Gerry Shishin Wick gives a lovely and simple recap of the intent of this koan.  “Here Master Chosa [the Japanese form of Changsha] is encouraging us to take a step forward from wherever we may be.  Each of us is stranded on a hundred-foot pole. We may have climbed up for the view, or we may have fallen to it from another perch.  No matter where we are in our Zen practice or our life, we’re always standing on top of a hundred foot pole.  But we must not rest there.  We must step forward into the unknown void in order to experience the boundless life.

I’ve probably said enough already.  In fact in his commentary in the Book of Equanimity, Tiantong  tells us that “Changsha said, ‘If I were to wholly bring up the Chan teaching, there’d be weeds ten feet deep in the teaching hall.’”  It’s probably best to shut up.  But call this an intent at what the masters called grandmotherly kindness: I’m going to keep talking!

“Without going into frightening waves it’s hard to find a suitable fish.”  What a wonderful line.  But the it’s really important to not hold onto the fish, or the idea of a fish.  This is not the same as my mother’s, “Anything worth having is worth working hard to obtain.”

“The monk said, ‘I don’t understand.”  How marvelous.  This is already it.  I’ve used many times the line out of the Blue Cliff Record, “I’ll allow the Old Barbarian knows, but not that he understands.”  This “not understanding” is critical.  Perhaps for me stepping off the pole is really about letting go of my desire to understand.  From understanding it’s a short step to wanting to control.  But since I can’t control anything that really matters – the sun rising, the rain falling, my birth as a privileged male in the most privileged of times – what kind of delusion is this control.  Truly, not understanding is best, second only to intimacy.

“The man sitting atop the hundred foot pole:

though he's gained entry, this is not yet the real.”

Tiantong in his commentary says, “This and Yantou’s saying to Xuefeng that "Deshan didn't know the last word" are troubled about the same thing.  I always tell people that it's much like someone having taken their grandparents house and business, and their relatives themselves, and sold them off on the same ticket, then put it in a crystal jar which you keep with you wherever you are, guarding it like your eyeballs.  Don't let me see!  I'd surely pick it up and smash it, making your hands-free, folks joyfully alive with no taboos."

Being joyfully alive with no taboos is wonderful.  But from a zen standpoint, this is arrived at after studying and forgetting the self, and not something taken on casually out of ignorance.

Again, quoting from Tiantong, “A man with views attached to his bodily self came to the patriarch Upagupta and sought initiation. Upagupta said, “The rule of seeking initiation is that you believe in my words and don't disobey my instructions."  The man said, "I have already come to take refuge with you, master; I certainly will obey your command." Then Upagupta magically produced a precipitous cliff on a mountain soaring high with big trees on it, and made him climb up a tree, and under the tree also he produced a chasm thousand cubits wide.  Then Upagupta bade him let go his foothold.  The man did as he was told, and let go; Upagupta bade him let go one hand, and he let go a hand.  Finally Upagupta bade him let go the other hand; the man replied, "if I let go the other hand, I'll fall into the abyss and dark."  Upagupta said, "Before, you promised to do as I instructed – how can you disobey me?"  At that moment the man's love for his body vanished; he let go his hands and fell – he didn't see tree or of this anymore, whereupon he realized the fruition of the path.”

This sounds hard, maybe even radical, but it sounds doable.  There are two important warnings, though.  The first is to remember that the pole is a place of solitary insight, not a place of ignorance.  It’s easy to think we’ve stepped off the pole into freedom, but to have missed the point.  My son loves the old NBC show, “Friends,” and we were watching an episode – well, actually three episodes, back to back.  In one of these Chandler was crazy about the girl with the terrible laugh, but when she put her chicken on his plate and helped herself to his vegetables, he freaked out and wanted to run away.  This was a level of sharing that was too much of a commitment.  He consulted with his friends and Joey counseled him, “It seems to me it’s like everything else: you have a fear of heights, you go to the top of the building.  You have a fear of bugs….get a bug.  In this case you have a fear of commitment, so I say you go in there and you become the most committed guy there ever was… Jump off the high dive, stare down the barrel of the gun, pee into the wind.”

So Chandler jumps off the pole and shows a level of commitment that is beautiful and which he finds really liberating.  But when this terrifies and pushes the object of his desires away, he falls into misery.  He languishes with Jennifer Anniston and Courtney Cox in misery, being fed ice cream.  He stepped off the pole, but wasn’t really ready to step into liberation and immediately found himself stuck again.

The second warning is precisely what happened to Chandler.  It is Gerry Wick’s point when he tells us that wherever we are in our practice we find ourselves on top of the pole.  We can’t expect to step forward once and be done.  The ego is pernicious and won’t let us get away with that.

Cherry talked to us almost a year ago about the gift of fearlessness, and this is an important part of stepping off the one-hundred foot pole.  Be not afraid.  Just do it.  If we cultivate insight by sitting, by practicing mindfulness, we gradually become more aware of where we are and what we need to be doing.  We might still be hiding from it, but we are in needs to be done.  This is the insight we cultivate, and stepping forward from this place is very different from stepping forward out of ignorance.  It is when we step forward from this place that we can manifest the stories of the vigorous engagement of the Chinese and Japanese ancients, not caring what others think, and experiencing the whole universe as my body. 

This act of stepping off the pole is the same as returning to the marketplace with bliss-bestowing hands.  It is letting go of all our puffed-up ideas of zen-this and enlightenment-that.  It’s truly relinquishing the last vestige of ego and seeing all others, the entire universe in the ten directions as none other than ourselves.  It is recognizing that to care for others is just the same as to feed and shelter ourselves.  I’d initially framed the end of this talk in terms of how it is important to remember – or stay in touch with – the responsibility that freedom brings, and the compassion that is the manifestation of that freedom, but I realized as I was writing that this does not get it.  Stepping off the pole can have no vestige of this thinking or remembering.  It is a step into the purely instinctual world where we already know – but don’t understand – that we are none other than everyone and everything else, and from this place there is no alternative but for true compassion to arise.  This is the compassion that comes from the root meaning of the word, passion with, sharing with, being one with.  If I am free to act, if the whole universe is my body, then the responsibility to care for the whole universe as I would my own eyes arises naturally.

But this is not easy.

“It’s like being stuck in a dream from which we cannot awaken.  To awaken we need to have trust to let go."

The Book of Serenity commentary also alludes to the koan of the buffalo passing through the window.  This is a ganto koan, one of the last koans for a mature student.  The whole buffalo gets through the window except for the tail; the question for the student is how to get the tail through the window.  This is the same question as how to let go of that last hold on the pole, how to let go of the fingerhold on the cliff.  It is the story in the Mumonkan of the monk holding onto a branch by his teeth.  It about seeing and avoiding the small indulgence, that “one little thing” that we assure ourselves is okay.  It’s the old habit patterns that reassert themselves.  Seeing and letting go becomes ever more difficult as the residues that return become more subtle in manifestation, and the ego’s desire to survive becomes more crafty and manipulative.

As Joey said, “Pee into the wind.”