Blue-Cliff Poems

Embarking on formal koan study of the 100 cases in The Blue-Cliff Records, I pondered how I might document my experience of direct non-verbal insight (“breaking through the barrier”), both for my teacher and for myself. I discovered that my spontaneous way of responding to a koan is with a spoken poem (or brushed calligraphy/painting) because poetic and pictorial language allows one to “point to” or “hint at” from behind rather than to conduct a frontal assault. Indeed, the original koans in The Blue-Cliff Records were themselves written by Hsueh Tou (Snow-Chute Mountain 980-1052) in a literary form of poetry or storytelling typified by poetic distillation, rather than a philosophical treatise. Bulky commentaries were only added on 85 years later by Yuan Wu (Awake-Entire 1062-1135). A foundational Zen teaching is that conveying the experience of awakening to the Buddha-nature within each of us is “a separate transmission outside of words and letters.” In point of fact, there is no answer at all, nothing to teach or learn, only radiant empty-mind depths that are the very nature of consciousness itself, the original-nature that all sentient beings share.

As David Hinton writes, “Success in sangha-case encounter (koan study) always involves responding with wu-wei (“not acting”) spontaneity, action that lies outside any logical analysis. The correct response is whatever thought or action emerges spontaneously from that silent emptiness cultivated and inhabited as home-ground in meditation practice, the generative emptiness of wu-mind (no-mind or Absence-mind), where the logical construction of thoughts has not yet begun…This is radical self-reliance, trusting oneself rather than teachers and their words. And more radical still: it is wu-wei at the most profound level–‘Absence-action,’ improvisational action in which one moves as the generative source, as the Cosmos unfurling its possibilities. And in this, it is cultivation of the sage dwelling that defines Ch’an enlightenment, dwelling heart and mind as an organic part of Tao’s great transformation of things…When a sangha-case plays out in words, it grows directly out of the understanding of wu-wei gained in meditation. Rather than the calculating machinery of an isolated self, an insightful response emerges with selfless spontaneity from the empty origin-tissue: thought as Tao unfurling its transformations…As physical action, an insightful response is selfless action as integral to the unfurling Cosmos, action moving with the dynamic energy of the Cosmos. Either way, words or actions, sangha-cases are not about explaining enlightened understanding; they are about enacting it…This assertion of thoroughgoing self-reliance represents one of Ch’an’s most fundamental principles: that we are in our inherent nature always already enlightened, and that only by overthrowing teachers and their teachings (answers) can we realize this enlightenment (depths).”

What follows are my Blue-Cliff Poems with the dates when they were composed. Although I generally follow a chronologic order, occasionally my study of Zen calligraphy leads me to encounter a brushed inscription of a koan that lands me ahead, as reflected in dates of composition that are not contiguous (e.g. my Case 60 poem came after Case 5). When poems are first composed in Chinese (infrequently), I also include the translation in hanyu pinyin and kanji.

On January 3, 2006, while studying a zenga scroll with the inscription of Case 60 and a long period of prior zazen, I unexpectedly had what may be my first kensho (enlightenment experience), which is yet to be confirmed (see Blue Cliff Poem below). It was sudden and triggered by a rapid change in weather with thunder and a heavy rain.