When Razan first me Sekiso, he asked him, "What shall we do when thoughts never stop rising and disappearing?" Sekiso said "Be cold ashes and a withered tree! Spotless purity! First impressions for ten thousand years! A box and its lid exactly fitting!" Razan could not grasp the meaning, and went to Ganto with the same question. Ganto shouted "Kwatz" and asked, "Who rises and disappears?"
...Sekiso adopted what we now think of as Soto strategy, but Ganto used Rinzai tactics.
-Zen and Zen Classics, Volume Two, Chapter Five
R.H. Blyth
Discussion:
When I read this, I was so delighted with "A box and its lid exactly fitting" that I forgot the question and had to start over in order to understand Ganto. I haven't met a modern Rinzai master or a Soto master, but if Blyth understands the difference correctly then it is clear that there isn't any.
Blyth is very interested in Christianity, and more educated than I am. Elsewhere he talks about how early Christians did not differentiate between body and soul, and believed that everything had a soul. This of course has changed over time. In chapter five Blyth has a picture, in two panels, of Tokusan and Rinazi. Tokusan holds a staff, with the quote from Tokusan, "Whether you manage to speak or not - The same thirty blows!" Rinzai is holding a shovel in his panel. His quote is "Everywhere (else) they are created; Here [in this monastery] buried alive."
Would I rather suffer Tokusan's thirty blows for his sake, or bury Rinzai alive for his? It is the same choice.
Tokusan was enlightened by the blowing out of a candle. That's a pleasant way to go. Blyth notes that it is also singular. I say, breath is breath.
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