The trees on Mount Ibuka

There’s a poem which I will just tell you and it applies to these fixed successful attitudes in life, and it’s used in all the training schools in Japan. There’s a particular mountain, the trees and the bushes are or were so thick that nothing could get through at all. I will say it was Mount Ibuka; I think was the name.

Now the poem is this:

The trees on Mount Ibuka
Are not so thick
That from time to time
A ray of moonlight
Cannot pierce through the branches.

Nothing solid can come through, but there is a ray of clear awareness which can come through. All our cultivated habits of thought and will, will fail in certain circumstances, but the clear awareness will be able to penetrate through any obstacle. The Buddha nature, where is it? It doesn’t seem to be anywhere. It’s something which we know we haven’t got and yet we have.

One method they have of teaching this is through history, and it’s no use citing examples from Chinese or Japanese history which take long explanations, so one or two examples from our history. You can all read silently. You can pick up a letter and you can read it, but in the Middle Ages and in classical times, they couldn’t do that. They had to verbalize. They had to say it aloud before they could read. “Cherry trees are thought to have failed when they don’t produce flowers.” That was the only way they could read. You had to verbalize and this was true of Japan too.

A Russian captain in the 18th century who was wrecked on the coast, he was held in prison for a time till the authorities could investigate him. He complained to the guard that the guard was keeping him awake at night by reading aloud, and he said, “Please read quietly.” The guard said, “This is the only way I can read. Unless I say the words, I can’t read.” St Augustine could read silently and he was regarded as a great and unparalleled genius because he could do this, but everybody here can do that. Are we all unparalleled geniuses? Perhaps we are, but certainly, at that time they couldn’t find this capacity in themselves.

We know the medieval people, they built these great cathedrals. These were tremendous triumphs of organization and the finances were pretty complicated too, but if you look at the history, the accountants couldn’t multiply in their head, more than 5×5. No human being could remember the tables after that so they had them posted up on the walls.

If he was away from his posted-up tables, and he wanted to multiply, say 7×7, naturally you can’t remember things like that.  So he would hold up the hands and he’d put down the fingers above five, it’s seven actually, so he’d put the two down that are above five and you leave the rest up.  Then he’d do the same with the other hand. Then he’d add the fingers that are down = four, and he’d multiply the fingers that are up, 3×3 = 9, so he got the answer, 49.  Professional accountants used this. There are references in the literature at the time to the ‘supple fingers’ of accountants, because they were doing this all the time. We can manage this now. They were professionals dealing in millions of gold coins, but it was too difficult. They give examples from Chinese and Japanese history to illustrate this, but these are two from European history.

We’re meant to find something which we can’t find in ourselves. We have to have faith in the teacher who tells us, as the teacher has faith in us. We’re asked to make sacrifices, tremendous sacrifices, yes.  A man was complaining to a teacher about this. He said, “This giving up – so much we’re asked to give up.” The teacher said, “Not necessarily.” He said, “We are. We’re asked to give up all these things.”

They went along and came to a judo dojo where the teacher knew the pupils and he called one of them out. He said, “This boy is very keen. He’s determined to become county champion.” He asked him how he trained, he said, “I train every day three or four hours, and the Saturday nights I often run or walk all night.” The teacher said to him, “You’re making the most colossal sacrifices. You’re so exhausted that you never go out to the cinema or anything like that in the evenings, no parties. You’ve got to keep off the drink, which some of your friends are going in for. You have to sacrifice all this. Don’t you feel it’s sometimes too much?” The boy just looked at him and said, “What on earth are you talking about? It’s no sacrifice at all.” He was doing what he wanted to do with his whole being. All these other things were simply peripheral.

One other illustration on about this is a little story that appeared in a Japanese magazine not long ago, where some politicians went to a temple. They saw the abbot there and they were looking around it and abbot was very kindly and offered them a meal. So this meal was served. Then the abbot said, “Is there anything you’d like with your meal?” One of the politicians said, “Well, I’d like some sake as you’re offering.”  The abbot banged his fist on table: “Pronouncing a word like that in this temple!” He gave him quite a scolding and telling off. Everybody hung their heads. Then the abbot called the attendant. He said, “Bring some puja water.” ‘Puja’ is spiritual wisdom.  The puja water, when it came, turned out to be sake.

Pupils when they enter sometimes complain that they are given a sort of standard discipline that everybody’s given, and that’s a great disappointment because people say, “Well, we’re all different. I expected to have what would suit my character.” The master of novices says, “Well, this will suit your character.” “Oh.” Then the master says, “It’s probably better if you don’t talk to other people about it.” “Ah. Yes, well.”  Of course, after being told that, you would never say a word, but somehow it leaks out. Then he discovered that in fact, this was a practice that everybody was given, so he went to complain.  He said, “Look this is just sort of mass production, isn’t it? It’s got to suit. We’re all different aren’t we?” The master said, “Well, here we find that we’re all the same.” The pupil said, “But, look, everybody says we’re all different.” The master said, “The fact that everybody says so means that we’re all the same.”

Only one word more and that is about applying things to ourselves. Two women pupils studied under a woman teacher for whom they had a great reverence.  She used to sit them every week together, and one of them said, coming away, “You know it’s funny, at the end she always says something about egoism or pride or something like that.” The other one said, “Yes, I’ve noticed that, and I try to examine my conduct and see. I generally do find that there is something in it, and I try to amend it.”

The first one said, “Oh well, of course, you must speak for yourself. I’ve nothing to say about that; but me, I do all that work in the temple. I never call attention to it. I never ask for any acknowledgment or any recognition, and I don’t get any either. How can anyone think I was egoistic? Why, I’m famous for remaining in the background.”

 

© Trevor Leggett

Titles in this series are:

Part 1: Fingers and Moons

Part 2: Cherry blossoms

Part 3: Fingers are the methods

Part 4: Imitations do not lead to anything

Part 5: The trees on Mount Ibuka