Investigating Joshu's Old Woman

The Reading:

THE CASE


A monk of Joshu's asked an old woman the way to Taizan.  She said, "Go straight on?  After the monk had taken three or five steps, she said, "This monk also goes off like that."  Afterwards, another monk told Joshu about this, and Joshu said, "Wait a bit; I'll go and investigate this old lady for you."  The next day off he went, and asked the same question and got the same reply.  On returning, Joshu said to the congregation of monks, "I've investigated the old lady of Taizan for you."

-Mumonkan

With a smattering of Zen it is not difficult to make a fool of people.  There seem to have been quite a number of old women who made themselves useful round the famous mountains (temples), pulling the legs of young monks.  No doubt some of the old women were genuine, some not, and this is what Joshu "investigates."


The monk asks the way to the temple.  The old woman answers if he were asking about the Way, and tells him,    as Stevenson says, "The way is traight like the grooves of launching," bu the monk is quite oblivious of this, and thinks she is answering the plain, relative question in the plain relative way.  When the monk does not respond to her absolute answer, she sneers at him, out loud.  Joshu conducts his investigation.  Though he does not tell his monks the result, he cunningly suggest that he has found her out, in order to make a fool of them, for unless they become more foolish than they already are by birth they can never become clever.


In actual fact, the old woman's treating Joshu in the exactly the same way as the young monk, shows that her Zen was half-baked...


From this Case we learn two things.  First, not to do as Joshu did, investigate other people's Zen...

CASE XXXI, Mumonkan, R.H. Blyth

Discussion:

Blyth fails us here, as does Mumon - but Mumon cannot fail us, because he is only indulging himself, and in that he can never fail.  Blyth, like many of us, thinks he knows.  He thinks he knows about the Old Woman's Zen, he thinks he understands what Joshu tells the monks, it is all very clear to him!  

Blyth fails to understand this koan as many do.  It is a very difficult koan, lacking the referential immediacy of one hand clapping or three pounds of flax.  Begin with Joshu's answer and it should be clear to you: he investigated the Old Woman.

What more can the monks ask for, without asking for enlightenment?  So there it is, Joshu has answered their questions by pointing to the answer they already have but do not know.  

Zen Masters from the beginning have investigated other people's Zen.  It is both a hand shake and a rebuke, it is both a terrible insult and the kindest warmest most intimate private joke between two people.  Do not hesitate to investigate other people's Zen.  Begin with your own.