Sitting Alone on Courage Peak

A student asked Baizhang, “What is the most wonderful and special thing?”
“Sitting alone on Great Courage Peak.”
The student bowed, and Baizhang hit him.

—Blue Cliff Record Case 26

I was visiting this koan with a friend the other day, and what impressed me was this case’s ordinariness: just our sitting alone, right where we are, is enough. 

“Great Courage Peak” sounds kind of aspirational, but it was just the name of the mountain where Baizhang lived. He could have as easily said Geyser Peak, Lake Tahoe, or Bolinas. Or he could have responded, “Sitting alone drinking a latte at Peets Coffee.” Or blanching and packing tomatoes in my kitchen. Reading The Record of Dongshan in the early morning. Don’t say “could be.” It is.

When Dongshan was leaving, he said to Yunyen, his teacher, “If in a hundred years someone were to ask me how to describe you, how should I respond?” Yunyen answered,  “Say, ’Just this. This!’” Dongshan fell silent.

There is something wonderful and special about just-this-ness. The just-this-ness of Chan-Zen is a fullness, an enoughness, a wholeness. That is so great because we are the complete package, whatever mountain we sit on, even if we are sitting alone on no-courage mountain. 

Many years ago, somebody felt they had to name just-this-ness, so they called it buddha nature. 

Dongshan, on leaving his aged teacher, still had a position to defend. Old Yunyen said, “After you depart, it will be hard to meet again.” Dongshan replied,”It will be hard not to meet.” 

Yah, well, “Every day is a good day.” Of course it is, but in that good day, where are the humanness, the tears, the sadness upon saying goodbye to a beloved teacher for the last time?

Later on, as Dongshan was crossing a stream, he saw his reflection in the water and all his doubts fell away. His gatha from that moment became famous:

Seeking from others is not helpful
If we do, we feel more and more separated.
I now go on my way entirely alone,
yet there is nowhere we cannot meet.
Now I am just who I am;
but at the same time, I am not what it is.
When we come to understand this
for the first time, we know the true suchness.

Art: Teaching Buddha, Mayumi Oda, the Original Goddess! at www.mayumioda.net

—Jon Joseph