Foyan's Chicken Noodle Soup

Let's talk about what Foyan says in his lecture "Zen Sickness." As always for these, I'm using the Cleary translation because it is the most accessible and I'm extraordinarily lazy.

The spiritual body has three kinds of sickness and two kinds of light; when you have passed through each one, only then are you able to sit in peace. In the Heroic Progress Dis course, furthermore, Buddha explained fifty kinds of meditation sickness. Now I tell you that you need to be free from sickness to attain realization.

Already a mountain of complications.

What is the "spiritual body," and "light" in Foyan's discussion? As opposed to a material body? As opposed to darkness. I don't deign to know more than Foyan, but all this seems to be rife with dualities.

Anyone familiar with the "Heroic Progress Discourse?" I'm not sure it is necessary for to understand his point, however. He's just saying that there are a lot of issues you can run into in meditation.

In my school, there are only two kinds of sickness. One is to go looking for a donkey riding on the donkey. The other is to be unwilling to dismount once having mounted the donkey.

Luckily, I think this is Foyan's way of setting his prior paragraph aside.

The donkey in this formulation would be enlightenment. It is a mistake to go searching for something that you are in on or around. It is kind of like Huangbo's idea of looking around for a jewel in your forhead. Or me looking for my glasses when they're on my face.

What would dismounting be though? I think when you formulate an enlightenmen or an absolute that you are looking for, this is a duality. Foyan is saying drop the duality.

You say it is certainly a tremendous sickness to mount a donkey and then go looking for the donkey. I tell you that one need not find a spiritually sharp person to recognize this right away and get rid of the sickness of seeking, so the mad mind stops.

Wow Foyan, here I was thinking I was a smarty pants knowing that I don't need to seek or hunt for the enlightenment, because it is here, everywhere, all the time, whether we see it or not.

Once you have recognized the donkey, to mount it and be unwilling to dismount is the sickness that is most difficult to treat. I tell you that you need not mount the donkey; you are the donkey! The whole world is the donkey; how can you mount it? If you mount it, you can be sure the sickness will not leave! If you don’t mount it, the whole universe is wide open!

This is a subtle thing to recognize, and it leaves me speechless every time a read it. I don't know how to paraphrase this, but it is clear he is hitting gold here. This ever so minute difference between not searching for it, and realize you ARE it, is ever so difficult. Any investigation gets too far, because there is an investigator and the thing investigated. Any discussion of it goes to far, because there is the thing and the discussion of the thing. Any interpretation misses the mark. How can you interpret what is simply is?

When the two sicknesses are gone, and there is nothing on your mind, then you are called a wayfarer. What else is there? This is why when Zhaozhou asked Nanquan, “What is the path?” Nanquan replied, “The normal mind is the path.” Now Zhaozhou suddenly stopped his hasty search, recognized the sickness of “Zen Masters” and the sickness of “Buddhas,” and passed through it all. After that, he traveled all over, and had no peer anywhere, because of his recognition of sicknesses.

"What else is there" indeed? Nothing. There can be nothing else. There is it. You are it.

One day Zhaozhou went to visit Zhuyou, where he paced back and forth brandishing his staff from east to west and west to east. Zhuyou asked, “What are you doing?” Zhaozhou replied, “Testing the water.” Zhuyou retorted, “I haven’t even one drop here; what will you test?” Zhaozhou left, leaning on his staff. See how he revealed a bit of an example, really quite able to stand out.

This section puzzles me in a different way, so correct me if I'm wrong here.

The "waters" are enlightenment. Zhuyou, in asserting he is inferior, that there has been no enlightenment, that there is a lack, misses the point. He hasn't realized that he is it.

Zen followers these days all take sickness for truth. Best not let your mind get sick.

I don't think much has changed since Foyan's time.

Here's your jam