The blue mountain -
in the white clouds.
There are many different words and expressions pointing to that which is indescribable. One reason is that different words stress different aspects; another that they resonate differently with different people; and a third important reason is, as Morinaga Roshi puts it: “After using a word or label for a while it takes on a certain flavor, it solidifies, and we assume that we know what it points to.” To disrupt the knowing and the getting stuck in labels instead of looking directly at what they refer to, the Buddhist masters changed the labels freely depending on the situation—calling it mind or no-mind, self or no-self, Buddha or No-Buddha. They also used Chinese poetry, like “The blue mountain in the white clouds,” where something or, more accurately, no-thing is expressed while remaining hidden, and therefore retaining its mystery and ungraspable beauty.
The blue mountain in the white clouds. The blue mountain, solid and unmoving, and the white clouds, airy lightness, floating along, coming and going, arising and dissolving. The logical conclusion would be that the blue mountain is hidden in the clouds and that we should search for it and reject the clouds to see the mountain. That’s exactly what many people are trying to do—getting rid of one thing to get more of the other. As if what arises would be different from the source, as if there were two things in the Dharma - one an obstacle and the other the “real” thing. This kind of “picking and choosing,” as the third Patriarch called it, will keep us going in loops, always grasping and rejecting, always searching, always expecting results in the future, and not recognizing that what we are searching for is already happening.
The blue mountain in the white clouds - when we read the poem carefully, without adding a “hidden” or a “searching,” we might notice something stunning - wherever and whenever there is a cloud, the blue mountain is right there. The blue mountain permeates everything and everywhere; nothing needs to change or be manipulated. We have difficulty seeing it because we like to stay outside the cloud and search somewhere else; in fact, the very notion of a separate “me” trying to grasp or understand is the outside. So what can we do? Is doing an option at all, or is it already a moot point? As long as we come from a fixed position of “me,” we want to do something, own the cloud, become one with it, do away with it, something, anything. Facing the impossibility of this attempt, the impossibility of reaching and attaining liberation by either searching or non-searching, we might have an inkling that being “caught up in a me” is the problem. Can we now refrain from turning around and trying to do away with the “me,” creating another project, another impossibility, and instead neither grasp nor reject? Or, as Master Rinzai says, “not taking a position in the inside or the outside.” Just “as it is” - immediately and completely, nothing lacking and nothing to get rid of. The blue mountain is always clear and bright, shining in every cloud. In the dark ones as well as in the fluffy rose-colored ones, in hurt as well as in pleasure. It is obvious and immediate. It is the ongoing and ungraspable samadhi of play.
This is the last post this year. A lot was said and described, and there is always the danger of getting too heady and forgetting that everything expressed; all the pointers and quotes of the masters are based on a very solid and ongoing concrete sitting practice where we can very quickly and without an intermediary notice how pain arises, how we most likely keep it going by resisting it while at the same time looking for pleasure. The experience of this frustration, irritation, and failure needs to be acknowledged and fully lived instead of blindly resisted as if it doesn’t belong, as if certain experiences don’t belong to the Dharma.
I hope that some of the posts, maybe even just one sentence here and there, resonated with you and inspired practice. My thanks for all the feedback and support I received, especially for the invaluable editing advice, and to the people who let me use their artwork to add dimension and richness.
I will continue to publish some talks next year. The talks were given to the Daishuin West sangha over many years and published by the sangha 2017 in a small volume titled “Infinite Ocean.” Some of you will have the book and read the talks, but many new subscribers have not and might enjoy them. I will publish mid-month, and it will be a free subscription for everybody.
Let’s finish with a quote from Master Rinzai to start the New Year in the proper state of mind: “As I see it, there is nothing that isn’t infinitely deep and nobody who isn’t liberated.”
Thank you, and a Happy New Year to you all.
Photo: Dennis Elliott-Smith
Dear Ursula, There is sadness as I read this is the last post. Yet, there is deep gratitude for these posts over the past year. They were an inspiration and will continue to be so. They would make another helpful, wonderful little book - titled "For What it's Worth." Thank you! Thank you for your effort and practice that has given us these teachings. May the Blessings of good health, safety, happiness, and much love be with you all year long.
What a blessing of great heartfelt wisdom. I am very grateful to have these talks permeating the space of my beingness. A Blessed New Year and much love and respect to you dear Ursula ❤ Thank you ❤