CONVERSATIONS 9

 ANCIENT REGULATIONS 

(Baizhang Huaihai 百丈懷海 720-814)

The copy of the Ancient Regulations that I had read before my little excursion to China seemed an odd business. For example, there was this:

At 3:00 A.M., which is the fifth watch of the night, when the abbot makes his rounds, burning incense through the aisles of the practice hall, the incense offering assistant reminds the abbot of the scheduled event once again, saying: Following the breakfast of rice gruel, the ascent to the Dharma Hall is scheduled, sir. If it is a guest master, the assistant instructs him to post in the practice hall a wooden tablet inscribed with the words “Ascent to the Dharma Hall.”

At breakfast, the practice hall director strikes the octagonal wooden post with its mallet to signal the moment when the first serving of rice gruel is completed, then immediately strikes it again and makes the following announcement: I announce to you, fellow practitioners, that when we hear the bell ring after breakfast, each of us, properly attired, will proceed to the Buddha Hall. Respectfully announced.

My guess is that the translator has embellished the simple list of guidelines into a flowery, figurative description of Huaihai’s list. Nothing I had read about Matsu’s favored disciple led me to believe that he would write such a document.

Imagining some dark morning in the rain, slurping shuifan, the characters 水 饭 clearly  giving the nature of this fine repast: water rice, head aching from an indifferent night of rest, the day ahead, programmed from dawn to dusk, the young monks must have risen reluctantly. Just 25 odd years separate Matsu’s temple and this place still under the thumb of Baizhang Huaihai; but the change here is as radical as the change in the country.

Between 750 and 820, China had six different emperors. The period began with a conflict brought on by the An Lushan Rebellion (755 - 763.) The Tang Dynasty went from a strong, centralized government to a much weakened fragmentary state. By 820, regional military governors began operating as autonomous warlords.

In 906, the Tang Dynasty fell under the weight of its own confusion. Five short-lived dynasties took control of the northern provinces, while ten separate kingdoms rose to rule the south. It wasn’t until 960, with the coup of Emperor Taizu and his successors, that unification began. The warlords were systematically conquered in the south; with the conquest of the Northern Han in 979, China was once again reunified.

As the country succumbed to rebellion and disorder after An Lushan, Chan monks, in the interest of self-preservation, began to organize and grow. The Ancient Regulations of Huaihai were a major step in the establishment of well run, orderly temples.

Matsu, as we have seen, was a dominant character who could control simply with his presence. Huaihai was not such a man. Though he has become recognized as a  major figure in the Zen lineage, this is largely a matter of the future bestowing honors on a past that does not warrant them: such is History. Chan, as an organization, needed legitimacy. Huaihai, the bureaucrat, the accountant, was able to give them an organization that allowed Chan Buddhism to grow and become an independent entity with its own temples, governed by strict rules and regulations.

Baizhang Huaihai

The Japanese masters to come adopted this format and Zen temples of the 21st century are run precisely like clockwork, with every eventuality accounted for. Even one’s time in the toilet is prescribed.

It all seemed a long way from the laissez faire of Matsu’s Youmin Temple in Nanchang.

Huli and I had arrived at the temple and were greeted respectfully, but warily. Everyone, it seemed, was elsewhere. The temple itself was scrupulously clean, but well used, and many of the buildings appeared in need of repair. The silence was disconcerting. Somewhere near were over 120 monks; but the only sign of them was a distant hum of chanting.

Huli had told me that Huaihai, in his heyday, had 80 or 90 personal disciples. We wandered the grounds, looked into the empty Dharma Hall, a gloomy room with sagging, scarred floors. Polished to a shine, these floors, but looking for all the world like a beautiful woman, powdered and perfumed, but obviously gone to seed with age and neglect.

We went back to the village and shared a rice bowl with the local carpenter and his family. No work at the temple, he told us. Sometime I fix this or that, gain merit for next life, laughing at the thought.

The abbot saw us in the late afternoon. An intelligent, well educated fellow, he obviously had a deep respect for his master Huaihai. When I asked about the status of Buddhism, he took some time with his answer. It wouldn’t do to be disrespectful to the emperor, Li Cul, best known for hosting extravagant palace feasts.

“We have struggled. It is as it has always been. This man and that man at odds with one another. This man says ‘black,’ that man says ‘white.” The abbot, whose name was Moyan (莫言) that translates literally to "don't speak", appropriately paused to bow his head in thought. He did so often, placing a crooked index finger beneath his nose.

Oddly, the lyrics of a Paul Simon song popped into my head: One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. Way of the world.

“Monks were defrocked in the thousands,” Moyan said. “Many of those, of course, had no interest in the Dharma, but only in their rice bowl. However, we were diminished. That man ruled the land, and this man suffered. We were not permitted to preach in the cities and towns. And, in the last years of Hsuan tsung, those who wished to become monks were required to do so through the bureaucratic system that required purchasing a certificate. That man lined his pockets, while this man went hungry.”

A gong sounded, distant, muted. The abbot straightened his back and said, “I must go now.”

And so we, too, went.

Huli was quiet as we walked back to the village. Then he said, “Too much arm, too much hand, pushing tool against rock, not so good. Break tools, that will.” He gave a shake of his head. “Silly stuff,” he said. “Carve hard rock best with soft touch.”