seventh world of chan buddhism - Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

Through the ages, year after year, the Hua were obliged to place the burden of their
civilization's survival upon the frail shoulders of a trembling girl. Nobody could think of a
better way to cope with a randy river.
(Nobody, not even down to modern times, has found a better way. Due mainly to
centuries of foolhardy engineering projects which attempted to contain the water by building
up the banks but succeeded only in containing the silt and building up the bed - at some
points it is 70 feet above the plain - in l93l, from July to November, the river flooded 40,000
square miles. A million people drowned or died from disease and famine. Eighty million
were left homeless.)
(The river's prurient ways have, incidentally, inscribed themselves upon the Chinese
idiom. Where westerners use the color red - scarlet particularly - to indicate passion and
rampant lust, the Chinese use yellow to the same effect.)
With no godless technology available to protect them, the Hua became
understandably obsessed with winning friends and influencing spirits. The affections of gods
were clearly not to be trifled with. People had to find out where they ranked in the divine
popularity polls.
Hindsight was as infallible a judge to them as it is to us. A man whose flocks
multiplied upon a certain mountain believed himself to be favored by that mountain's god just
as a man who happened to break his leg while walking over the same terrain knew to a
certainty that his relations with the mountain could use some improvement.
Was there a way of determining in advance, i.e., before a journey was started or
before a flock was moved, how the proprietory spirits would respond to the intrusion? You
bet. A medicine man or shaman could tell, for a nominal fee, of course.
Shamans had the power to enter a trance and then, in that condition, to dispatch their
spirits to a targeted deity. At this point, shamans divide into two classes; one, loquacious
professionals (known to us today as mediums or spirit channels) who generally target deities
according to the specifications of a particular client or to the demands of an assembled group;
and two, retiring amateurs (known to us as mystics, contemplatives, or ascetics) who seek
their gods for profoundly personal motives which have nothing to do with coin, fame, or
power.
The professional shaman would contact the specified deity who, if kindly disposed
towards his visitor, would enter the shaman's body and use his or her vocal chords to
communicate with his human interlocutors.
Not everybody could become entranced. Shamans were very special people who had
to be handled with considerable care and respect since the gods were so prejudiced in their
CHAPTER 2 CHINA
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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