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Abstract
Joshu was a Chan master back in Tang Dynasty China. Some of his dialogues became koans that are still widely used by contemporary Zen aspirants. Indian Buddhists originally employed the word ‘doubt’ in a way that developed new shades of meaning, both as Joshu played with the word, and as this term evolved further in the koan traditions of Sino-Japanese Buddhism. Joshu lived for 120 years. This extraordinary lifespan is far beyond that of today’s so-called ‘SuperAgers’. Recent research based on the brain imaging data and the telomere length from many long-term meditators suggests the possibility that some of old Joshu’s longevity reflected his one hundred years of prior meditative practice.
Notes
1. Green Citation1998, saying 190, 71.
2. For clarity, ease of reference and pronunciation, the present pages use those simplified, familiar versions of each master’s name found in common use today, as have Foster and Shoemaker (Citation1996) and Yamada (Citation2015). For example, Joshu is more user-friendly than Zhaozhou Congshen or Chao-Chou Tsung-shen. For comparison, these longer Pinyin or Wade–Giles Chinese versions are listed with their Japanese romanji equivalents in Ferguson (Citation2000), 473–478 and in Yamada (Citation2015), 269–280.
3. The word Chan refers to the meditation schools of Mahayana Buddhism that arose in China. The word Zen usually refers to these schools as they later evolved in Japan. There, the terms Rinzai and Soto often denoted their two major styles of practice. Kensho and satori referred to extraordinary alternate states of consciousness.
4. A seven-pound robe of hemp also imposes a major, weighty burden on a wearer’s shoulders. I appreciated anew this release from such a burden when I finally read Joshu’s metaphoric reply.
5. Multiple complex issues are involved when the overconditioned Self of one’s psyche and soma dissolves into the varieties of emptiness (wu or mu) and Oneness. These are discussed in Austin Citation1998, 110–119, 540–542, 570–572, Citation2006, 61–64, 273, 333–356, 383–386, Citation2009, 118–121, 128–130, 150, 155–158, 188, Citation2011, 91, 150–155, 159, 187, Citation2014, 178–182.
6. The qualities of suchness that co-emerge with this emptiness are discussed in Austin Citation1998, 549–553, Citation2006, 358–371, 383–386, Citation2009, 219, Citation2014, 21, 59, 179.
7. The first two oak tree examples (sayings number 12 and number 47) occur relatively early in Green’s collection. Joshu could have been responding to different monks in different temples during different years.
8. Joshu could have been referring to these very different trees in different temples. This old cypress tree response has entered into the title of a recent review of contemporary Buddhism: McDaniel (Citation2015).
9. This Chinese version of saying 317 by Liu Dongliang is found at http://read.goodweb.cn/news/news_view.asp?newsid=72247. I thank Professor Michael Volz for finding this version and translating it.
10. Therefore, for Robert Aitken-Roshi, the ideal approach for a Zen aspirant would not be so strenuous as ‘to try to master Mu, or to penetrate Mu, but rather to admit Mu … and to seek intimacy with Mu’. See Aitken (Citation1993) 2005, 25–27, 30, 40, 42, 100.
11. Here, Dumoulin (Citation1963) translates Mu as ‘nothingness’ (248). This word can be misleading. Joshu’s one word response might then be misunderstood to imply not emptiness of Self but some nihilistic equivalent of a consciousness that perceives ‘nothing.’
12. Practitioners who do not feel assailed by the internal and external pressures of some ‘Great Doubt’ will not need to be driven to escape its great conflicts. Practitioners are considered to be misinformed if they go so far as to deny the validity of kensho-satori, having rationalised that they are already innately ‘enlightened’. Any such approach could be regarded as having only followed a third style of safe, self-protecting, inconsequential ‘buji Zen’. (Kapleau Citation1965, 282).
13. Suppose Joshu’s 70 years of practice after the age 50 were to have followed the straight line, sloping relationships similar to those illustrated by Cherubini and Luders. If so, then his potential brain age might be speculated to have been ‘only a mere 110 or so’ when he died.
14. Accompanied by countless other companions, both two-footed, four-footed, and winged.
15. The juzu is the continuous Buddhist circular string of 108 beads, similar to a rosary. (Green Citation1998, saying 229, 83) (Hoffmann Citation1978, saying 204, 83).