Baizhang Huaihai

Before we recommence talking about Keiji Nishitani's opus, Religion and Nothingness, one of the main texts of the Kyoto School, I want to begin today's talk by taking a look at another one of the koans found in the wumenguan, or gateless gate.

We touched on the first case, Zhao Zhao's dog, last time, and now we're going to take a look at the second case, Bai Zhang's fox.

Every time Bai Zhang taught, there was an old man who followed along with the congregation to hear the Dharma, and left when the congregation withdrew.

Unexpectedly one day, he stayed behind, so Bai Zhang asked him, "'Who is the one who stands before me?' The old man said, I am not human.

In the time of the ancient Buddha Kashyapa, when I was dwelling here on this mountain, a student asked me if a person of great practice still falls into cause and effect or not.

I replied that he does not fall into cause and effect, and consequently I have had five hundred births in the body of a wild fox.

Now I am asking you, master, to turn a word on my behalf, so that I can escape from being a wild fox.

Then he asked Bai Zhang, Does a person of great practice still fall into cause and effect or not? Bai Zhang said, He is not deluded about cause and effect.

He was a Dharma brother of another Guishan.

They were both students of Baizhang.

And he said to the monks, I spent the last 30 years here on Mount Gui, the mountain of Guishan, eating Guishan's rice, shitting Guishan's shit, but not practicing Guishan Zen.

I just mined an old water buffalo.

And this discourse on causality and its relationship to karma and rebirth would become very important in the Zen tradition, because of course in Mahayana, we have this form is emptiness, emptiness is form, uh, new philosophical orientation, uh, where things are sort of affirmed and denied at the same time, and causality is even brought into that.

And there's this, uh, very nuanced, uh, koan, one of the cases, called Baizhang's Wild Fox.

And in the episodes on Nishitani, we'll talk about that koan more.

But, uh, th-this is just a key issue in Buddhism.