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

contractual arrangement they have with us. One of them gives milk and the other sings in
exchange for room, board, and whatever other perquisites they can negotiate. Stop feeding a
canary and he will stop singing. Stop feeding a milk cow and see what you get. Turned loose
or set free, neither survives for long. Perhaps at one time both could have prospered in the
wild, but it is now too late. They have become too timid and have lost the ability to fend for
themselves and to act or even think independently.
A person who does Animal Chan cannot tolerate the anxieties of secular life. He
simply cannot hold his ground in the hectic give-and-take of sexual or workingplace politics.
In the monastery he knows that he will receive at least three meals a day, a room of his own,
medical care, retirement benefits, a small but adequate paycheck every month for a job from
which he can never be fired, supplemental donations from kind relatives, and life-long
respectability which permits him to thumb his nose at all those people who said he'd never
amount to anything. On festive occasions he never has to worry about getting an invitation
since there is always a seat for him at the banquet table. And, of course, on New Year's Eve,
he never has to worry about getting a date.
People who do Animal Chan may be timid, passive and dependent, but though this
suggests a certain stupidity, such an inference would be wrongly drawn. They are neither
stupid nor uneducable. Those who are not already trained before they enter the monastery are
encouraged to pursue an academic interest, take music lessons, or learn a craft or some other
skill.
On the other hand, it does not follow that because they are socially helpless they are
socially nonreactive. They notice everything, recording who does what and when in a brain
that is defensively programmed to minimize good conduct of others and to exaggerate that
which is not so good. Such information is their ammunition which, should they ever be
found wanting in the execution of their own duties, they will use in any way they can to
defend themselves. They are not above poison pen letters. They also whine a lot.
Angel Chan. This is the Chan of sophisticated neo-intellectuals who are captivated by
Chan's lofty, philosophical principles, its cool, esthetic presentation and the dignity of its
priesthood which they enter as though pledged and pinned to a good Greek House. These are
the people the Prophet Mohammed had in mind when he said that, "A philosopher who has
not realized his metaphysics, is an ass bearing a load of books."
Kosho Uchiyama Roshi, one of the great Zen masters of the modern era of Antaiji
Temple, notes that in Japanese monasteries it is Americans nowadays who swell the ranks of
Angel Zen. They seem to excel, he says, in "polishing the scepters" of high-ranking, spiritual
persons. Exquisitely superior, they are called `angels' because, while being less than God,
they are ever so much more than mortal men.
People who do Angel Chan stroll meaningfully in temple gardens where they
frequently are caught, en flagrante, in acts of sublime cogitation. Daily they have intercourse
CHAPTER 5 SIX WORLDS OF SAMSARA
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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