Baizhang & The Fox

In Zen belief, nothing is exempted from cause and effect. For all the magical weirdness of the story below at its heart is a fact: even an enlightened master is subject to life and death, suffering and consequences. But how can you teach that?

What good is this religion, then, if it doesn’t offer an escape? Well, that’s the thing about Zen. Zen is a vast storehouse of techniques, stories, phrases, and figures that all are meant to help us receive the world just as it is, the world just as it presents itself. Anything that lets us off the hook is a delusion.

A lot of Zen people are very familiar with the phrase “A day without working is a day without eating.” This is ascribed to Baizhang, a long lived monk from the 700’s. Baizhang supposedly wrote the rules for Zen monks, but this was given to him long after he died. Maybe he did write something like that, but the documents were long lost. His stature and rectitude demanded a monument, and Baizang as author of the monk’s rules, the Zen “vinaya”, is that monument.

Until 10 years ago or so, I thought this “no work, no eat” bit was more of a moralistic imprecation than a guideline. But rather than a strict sense of one having to earn one’s keep, the full story is far more complex and shows Baizhang to be a seasoned teacher who lived by example and trusted himself as part of the Dharma.

By “trusting himself as part of the Dharma” I am trying to say that a good teacher trusts their student to take up what is offered and that they’ll bring it into their own life as best they can. You can’t make a person learn… we can trust them to learn. It is part of their nature. And the teacher is part of their environment.

The full story is this, which i’ve told it before in these pages:

Baizang was very old and had led the monastery for decades. His wisdom was rarely questioned and he worked alongside the other monks in the fields regardless of the weather. Those monks worried that he would get sick and die… they worried that they would someday be without their teacher. But someday, regardless, they would be without him. This was simply how the world will be.

Their love for Baizhang and their fear for the day when he passed them by took on a collective spirit. It was cold and raining. There was no doubt he’d head out in that cold, damp, early morning to weed and till. They hid away his rake and hoe.

So Baizhang refused to eat.

And this alarmed the unsteady monks so much that they gave him his tools back. Baizhang picked them up and headed to the fields. Later on, he ate.

Whether or not they learned something was up to them.

Baizhang was an administrator
and a strict leader of monks.
He wrote the rules.

As he got older he would just work in the garden,
but the entire monastery orbited around him.

As a great teacher, there'd be huge assemblies.
As the assemblies dispersed, an old man would linger.

When Baizhang noticed, he asked
"Who are you?"

The old man answered,
"I am not a human being.

"In the past, long before the Buddha's lifetime
I lived on this mountain.

"One day a student asked me:
Is a person who cultivated himself greatly
still subject to cause and effect,
to karma, to suffering, to death?"

"I answered, 'No, he is not'".

"And therefore
for a hundred lifetimes
I have been condemned
to assume the body
of a wild fox.

"I ask you, 
Venerable Baizhang,
say a phrase
that turns karma 
on its head
so i may shed
this wild fox body."

Baizhang said to him:
Ask me a question.

And so the old man asked:

Is a person
who has cultivated themselves greatly
still subject
to cause and effect,
to karma, to suffering,
and death?"

Baizhang said:
"He does not ignore cause and effect,
karma, suffering,
and death."

The instant this old fox spirit
heard this
he bowed and stated loudly:

I have already shed 
my wild fox body!
I lived just behind this mountain,
can you please
bury the monk who just died there!"

Baizhang ordered the attendant
to strike the bell
signaling a funeral
and after the meal
they held the funeral service.

The monks were all startled,
and mystified.
"Who died?" They all asked.

Ordered to go 
to the bottom of the cliff
on the far side 
of the monastery grounds

Baizhang stuck his staff
into a small cave
and retreived the fox body.

Which was cremated
and buried
in the proper way.