According
to the tradition of Seon-Buddhism (Jap. Zen), the Gong-An is a question conferred on a student (practitioner) by a Seon Master who has already attained
enlightenment.
The
Gong-An is known as Wha-Du, or it is called the patriarch’s Gong-An, due to
the fact that it originates from the patriarchs.
The
intention of the Seon Master who offers Gong-Ans to his desciples is to direct
them toward the path of the enlightenment. It is said that there are about 1700
Gong-Ans, used by eminent teachers, and some of the Gong-An collections are “
The Blue Cliff Record (Byuck Am Rok), The Mumun Kwan, The Jong Gyung Rok and
etc.”.
Literally,
the word Gong-An originally meant an official document. A long time ago in China
whenever any government documents were to be copied, an official seal would be
imprinted on the copy. At the time, one half of the seal was done on the
original document and another half on the copy, because
in case someday
its authenticity
would be verified, the two halves of the seal
could be
matched with each other.
In
the tradition of Seon-Buddhism, Gong-An is also used in the same manner. In the
course of Gong-An practice, a mind-to-mind “ transmission ” is effected
between the teacher and his student. And when the teacher (Seon Master) has
great sympathy with his student’s answer to his Gong-An, just like the
matching of the two halves of an official seal, then and only then the teacher
would approve of his disciple’s enlightenment.
The
importance of a Gong-An talk lies in motivating strong doubt within the student
not in motivating literary beauty or deep intellectual paradox of any kind. In
reality, the Gong-An represents “
a strong doubt
”, and the practitioner should hold fast on to the
Gong-An given to him, trying his
best around
the clock
to extract the original meaning out from it.
Once
a student named Huai Yang came to the famous sixth patriarch Hui-Neng, Hui-Neng
asked the student immediately upon his arrival,
-
What thing has thus been here ?
-
The
student Huai-Yang was completely dumbfounded. He could not come up with an
answer any more. So he replied, “
I don’t know
”. He went back to his way and thereafter he practised
intensively, never losing his grip on the question,
“
What is
this thing?
( What am I ?
)”. When he finally attained a firm belief about the question, he decided to
revisit the sixth patriarch and went to him, and he gave the following answer :
“
Even though you call me “a thing”, it is already incorrect !”
After
this Gong-An talk, Huai Yang was finally transmitted the dharma from the sixth
patriarch Hui-Neng.
Likewise,
if only one keeps on having strong doubt with regard to a given Gong-An, the ten
thousand doubts that well up inside his mind will boil down to one essential
doubt in time. So, one should mind not to let go of it and should keep fast
holding on to it.
The
Seon (Jap. Zen) practice is ,of course, one of many practices of Buddhism, and
especially “the Gong-An Gazing-Seon” lays strong emphasis on the
enlightenment attained through passing a Gong-An.
And
the Gong-An practice constantly has to be connected directly to enlightenment,
and practitioners should always bear in mind that the Gong-An question is used
as means to attain enlightenment.
Only
when the Gong-An's doubt is broken, it disappears by itself. But the breaking of
the Gong-An question should never be inferred alone by a practitioner himself,
and he must surely pursue an In-Ga (= the sanction of Gong-An’s solution )
from a known Seon Master. Why ? Because, if In-Ga is ignored and if he were off
the point in breaking of the Gong-An question, he is apt to be drawn back into a
new illusion of his own.
Now,
how many Gong-Ans actually exists out there?
One
time, a student asked an eminent Zen Master :
“
What is the best way to work on Gong-Ans? ”
He
replied,
“
The ten thousand questions are all but one question.”
You
should practice continually with one question : “What am I ?” and you must
not deviate from the path of one Gong-An... go straight, What am I ?, What am I
?, ..........
Then
your ten thousand questions will vanish instantly like smoke and surely one
question will remain at the end, What am I ? ........
This
is your main Gong-An. Then what is Seon?
Spring comes, the grass greens by
itself.
Summer comes,
it is hot.
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