Right after Great Master Yakusan Igen had finished a period of
meditation,1
a certain monk asked him, “As you were sitting there all
still and awesome like a mountain, what was it that you were thinking
about?”
The Master answered, “What I was thinking about was based
on not deliberately thinking about any particular thing.”
The monk then asked, “How can what anyone is thinking about
be based on not deliberately thinking about something?”
The Master replied, “It is a matter of ‘what I am thinking about’
not being the point.”
Having heard about this state described by Great Master Yakusan, we need
to investigate through our training what ‘sitting as still as a mountain’ means and
directly Transmit this, for this is how the thorough exploration of sitting as still as a
mountain is passed on through the words and ways of Buddhas. Even though it is
said that the way in which Buddhas think about things while being all still and
awesome like a mountain differs, Yakusan’s way of putting it is certainly one way
among them. It is his ‘thinking about’ not being based on deliberately thinking
about any particular thing. It includes ‘thinking about’ as his Skin and Flesh, Bones
and Marrow, and it includes ‘not thinking about’ as his Skin and Flesh, Bones and
Marrow.
The monk asked, “How can what anyone is thinking about be
based on not deliberately thinking about something?”
Even though the condition of not thinking about anything in particular is of ancient
vintage, how can one possibly think about it? How can thinking not go on while
sitting ever so still, and why did the monk not pierce through to what goes above
and beyond simply being ever so still? Had he not been as befuddled as some are in
our more recent, degenerate times, he would have had the ability to persist in his
inquiry into being ever so still.
The Master replied, “It is a matter of ‘what I am thinking about’
not being the point.”
Even though his statement, “It is a matter of ‘what I am thinking about’ not being
the point,” is a gem of clarity, in our consideration of the condition of not
deliberately thinking about anything in particular, we invariably employ what he
described as “ ‘what I am thinking about’ not being the point.” There is a someone
involved in not deliberately trying to think about something, and that someone is
maintaining and supporting an I. Even though being ever so still is synonymous
with that I, meditation is not merely an I thinking about something; it is the I
offering up its being as still and awesome as a mountain.2
Even though its being
ever so still is being ever so still, how can its being ever so still possibly think
about being ever so still?
As a consequence, being as still as a mountain is beyond the considerations
of Buddhas, beyond the considerations of Dharma, beyond the considerations of
having awakened, and beyond the considerations of intellectual understanding.
http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachin...6zazenShin.pdf