The Pang Family and the Everyday Moods of Zen

The Pang family lived in China in the 8th century and all were lay Zen practitioners. The father is the most well-known with many of his encounter dialogues and poems being recorded. His wife was also an accomplished practitioner as were his son and his daughter, Ling Zhao, and she also has a number of her Zen conversations recorded and used as koans. This story is from those recorded sayings and involves most of the family. 

One day, while the Layman was meditating in his sitting hut, he suddenly cried out, “It’s hard, hard, hard! And I’ve put ten coats of linseed oil on this platform too!” 

His wife said, “It’s easy, easy, easy! Just turn your eyes to the floor, lower your feet to it, and be on your way!“ 

Ling Zhao said, “It’s neither hard nor easy! The mind of the Patriarchs is in every blade of grass!”¹ 

So what is happening in this story that we can use in our practice? We have Mr Pang meditating in the space he has created for his cushion and where he has devotedly oiled the floorboards but things are not going well for him. Even though he has tried to make the conditions for himself as perfect as possible with a shiny pristine floor, he is finding his sitting difficult today. Mrs Pang hears his cries of hardship and contradicts him by telling him that the practice is easy; he needs to improve his position, set himself for kinhin, begin walking and all will be solved.

The daughter hears this conversation and she lets her parents know that it is not helpful when considering practice to think in terms of the duality of ‘hard’ and ‘easy’. She tells them that they need to drop discriminations in their practice and then they will find the true teachings of the ancestors. In another version of this teaching story² it is the son who offers the teaching of dropping conceptualisations and discriminations and the daughter makes a fourth point: namely that practice is beyond even these three elements of ‘hard’, ‘easy’, and ‘nondiscrimination’. In our version of the story, however, there is no fourth person present who pulls the narrative together as it is left to us, the readers, to resolve all the elements into a view of an all-embracing wholeness that is practice.

As we contemplate the totality of the story we can see that it points to an actively interacting system in which the elements are essentially a part of the whole but the whole itself is much more than merely the sum of the parts. Ling Zhao, indeed, gives a clue of the ‘much more’ as she points us toward “every blade of grass”. We can see the whole involves ‘hard’, ‘easy’, and ‘nondiscrimination’ separately and also as a togetherness that incorporates the hard and the easy and the mind of nondiscrimination but is beyond all these things. Of course in this story it is not that Mr and Mrs Pang are foolish and do not understand the Dharma and it is not that their daughter only appreciates a part of Zen practice. They are all capable practitioners and they are all responding to the moment and for us they are responding to practice in a way that is helpful. We can look at what they say and their responses to each other not just as separate individual comments but as an interconnected functioning wholeness that directs us toward an understanding of the moods, movements, and the completeness of practice. 

Hard 

So what do each tell us about Zen practice? Mr Pang is absolutely right: sometimes it is hard. Sometimes it is difficult to find our way to our cushion and then sometimes on the cushion it is very difficult to become settled. We can readily be disturbed by wandering thoughts and difficult emotions. We can get lost in the feeling that somehow or other we are not doing it right. Obstacles can arise in our practice and what happens to us can make us feel as if we are lacking in some way. We can try to force something and sometimes we may create impossible ways to ‘succeed’. However, there is a value in this hard aspect of practice in that it reminds us of why we came to practice in the first place. It is said frequently that we all come to practice for the wrong reasons and when it is hard we are reminded of these reasons and it provides a motivating drive for us. When it is hard we can appreciate the refuge that is practice. We come to learn time after time the way our mind works and undoubtedly when things are tough there is an important lesson in the development of understanding who we are. Certainly the hard element of practice repeatedly points to the nature of our personal psychology and consistently lets us know the nature of our individual make up. The ‘hard’ lets us know about those things that we have to accept and find resolutions in their arising and falling away. We need to recognise the reality of separation in our lives and honestly face the nature of who we individually are. It reminds us that we have to put in the effort. This is the psychological perspective and our ‘hard’ difficulties have the power of bringing us to practice. 

Easy 

Mrs Pang is also correct in that sometimes practice is easy. It is easy as she suggests for when we are struggling with our sitting, we can stand up and do some walking meditation, we can put one foot in front of the other and as we make the transition from sitting to walking we can feel its straightforward nature and rest in the knowledge, ‘I know how to do this’. It is easy when we are able to flow with the routine of one thing following the other – as our foot touches the floor, the other foot lifts and goes forward. It is easy as we hear, see and join in with the rhythms of practice. It is easy when as Tuesday evening comes we get up and go along to the meditation group as this is what we do. When we arrive we find it very easy to sit on the cushion in an appropriate posture. We know all the words of the chants and where the chants are in the liturgy book and we can feel ‘this is easy’. Our familiarity with what happens on the cushion and what happens in our lives lets us know that practice has a straightforwardness about it. It is about the comfort and familiarity of the routines and rhythms of practice regardless of whether they be chaotic or hard. The ‘easy’ has the power to lets us know that practice is a part of our lives because it is our life and we can proceed in a matter-of-fact manner with it. This is the living, breath in then breath out, perspective.

Non-discrimination 

In our story along comes Ms Pang to comment on ‘hard and easy’ and she reminds us that ‘when the opposites arise the Buddha mind is lost’. It is an important feature of practice that we examine our conceptualisations about ourselves and our way of judging the people and things that are around us. It is important not to be stuck on what we think is right or wrong, pleasant or unpleasant, hard or easy. It is important to be aware of and put down our prejudices. We need to move away from concepts and techniques and relate to things differently - not as ideas we agree or don’t agree with and practices that we can do well or badly. It is necessary to allow the mind to settle and experience the ‘mind of the patriarchs’. Here is a space in which things have no inherent quality of concept or judgement. Through illuminated silence we can come to experience the nature of mind. This has the power of presence, the power of sitting in the unadorned nature of the universe. It is the power of attention and awareness without the encumbrances of those obstacles that arise in our mind. This lets us know that beyond the pain and the discomfort and everything we identify as suffering there is a release by ‘putting down’ our mind of ‘opposites’. Then engulfed by this silence, we are not ‘wise’ or ‘holy’ as discriminations have been dropped – we just are. We are not this or that: we are. Then when we discover peace within, the world comes to rest as well. This is the practice perspective of aware experience and it also points to one of the fruits of practice as we settle into it. 

Life as it is 

To resolve the story as a whole, a fourth perspective emerges – a perspective that includes all of those positions we have examined already as well as a totality that includes but is more than those individual positions. This is a perspective that experiences the hard but does not push it away, it experiences the easy and does not push it away, it experiences the dropping of distinctions and through the awareness of clarity and wisdom it appreciates the nature of our life just as it is. This fourth perspective includes these and takes us ‘beyond’, back to the beginning. It is the perspective that is about the understanding of how the phenomenal world around us is not separate from us but is a part of us and we are a part of it and it also includes our experience. The real world is there and can be experienced just as it is – in its totality, without prejudice, without judgement, but with recognition of those elements that are in it. This mood of Zen is the experience of reality just as it is, with ourselves as ordinary human beings living an ordinary life in an everyday manner. We are not separate from anything. There is nothing outside this great reality – this perspective is manifestation of life as it is and we are a manifestation of life as it is. We can’t make the parts of reality we don’t like go away. We can’t wipe the slate clean of our history and of our selves – the universe includes all. It includes us when things are hard, it includes us when things are easy, it includes us when we are still and silent, it just includes us as we are. We can truly find the Dharma in everything we do. No element is superfluous, each element is a teaching and each teaching is a way of living with full awareness in our everyday life. This element is about active practice in everyday living. The power of ordinary be-ing. Each moment is an opportunity to enter into the everyday now. This is the practice-realisation perspective. 

Illnesses and remedies 

As we can see, each of these moods contains an important element of our practice and we need to recognise the way we, as individuals, move through them: in and out, back and forth, in our own random way and at various points discovering our own ‘gesture of balance’. However, we do need to be aware of the dangers and problems with each of these moods. The danger of the hard element is that we become discouraged, we lose our energy and we have an image of ourselves as someone who ‘just can't do this’. We can allow our negative self-images to arise and dominate. The antidote to this is having compassion for ourselves and taking a moment to appreciate our essential humanness. It is important to be kind and forgiving to the person that we are. Another antidote to being stuck in the hard is also to remember the easy. But with the easy there are ‘illnesses’ as well. We can become lazy and complacent and assume that everything we do is fine. We can avoid testing ourselves and we can see difficulties merely as things to be dropped rather than uncomfortably examined. We can develop a dharma pride which sets ourselves above others. We can follow just our own sitting habits rather than engaging in the true rhythms of practice. We can also lose our moral compass. The remedies to these maladies are to maintain an ongoing investigation of the teachings and a helpful relationship with our practitioner friends – we require a continual connection to the Dharma and Sangha. We require a clear view of all aspects of the Eightfold Path and we need to appreciate that the path is there to guide us when we wander away. 

The ‘sickness of the clear mind’ is the idea that this can be held onto all the time and that an aim of practice is to rest in some continual blissful state. The creation of goals and places to get to and the idea of a permanent Nirvana prevent us from obtaining the awareness and clarity that exist naturally. The notion of a fixed enlightened state is merely another opposite, as is the habit of just going on retreat merely to obtain some wonderful experience that somehow will see us through the hard times. These ideas hold us back from just practising and responding to the world and our life as it is. The medicine for this is the acceptance of impermanence, even of the quality and moods of our mind. This medicine also involves a large dose of giving up on gaining ideas and appreciating that there is nowhere to go and nowhere to get to. Self-acceptance is the first dose of this remedy. Finally the fourth mood – the sickness of the ordinary mind is to miss it and the remedy is practice. 

Verses to Complete 

By way of completion here are some verses by Mr Pang: 

Not wanting to discard greed and anger.
In vain you trouble to read Buddha’s teachings.
You see the prescription, but don't take the medicine –
How then can you do away with your illness!
Grasp emptiness and emptiness is form;
Grasp form and form is impermanent.
Emptiness and form are not mine -
Sitting erect I see my native home. ³ 

My daily activities are not unusual,
I'm just naturally in harmony with them.
Grasping nothing, discarding nothing.
In every place there is no hindrance no conflict
Who assigns the ranks of vermillion and purple? –
The hills’ and mountains’ last speck of dust is extinguished
Supernatural power and marvellous activity –
Drawing water and carrying firewood. ⁴ 

Notes

1. p. 113. The Sayings of Layman P’ang: A Zen Classic of China. Trans, J. Green. Shambhala. Boston. 2009.
2. p. 20 Wanting Enlightenment is a Big Mistake: Teachings of Zen Master Seung Sahn. Shambhala. Boston. 2006
3. p. 135 A Man of Zen The Recorded Sayings of Layman P'ang Trans, R Fuller Sasaki, Yoshitaka Iriya & D. R. Fraser. Weatherhill., New York. 199
4. R Fuller Sasaki, Yoshitaka Iriya & D. R. Fraser, op. cit., p. 49