CHIYONO'S WELL
The original source for the following koan was translated into English from a book called the Shaseki-shu (Collection of Stone and Sand), written late in the thirteenth century by the Japanese Zen teacher Muju (the "non-dweller"), and from anecdotes of Zen monks taken from various books published in Japan around the turn of the 20th century.
The nun Chiyono (Mugai Nyodai, 1223-1298), shown in the woodblock print below done by ukiyo-e master Yoshitoshi Taiso, studied and meditated for years, most noteably under the venerated Zen master Wu-hsueh Tsu-yuan (Bukko, 1226-1286, founder of Engakuji temple, arrived in Japan from China in 1280), on the ultimate question of existence, but was unable to reach the far shore. (see)
The more she longed for Enlightenment the further off it seemed. But one moonlit night she was carrying an old bucket filled with water from the well that eventually came to bear her name, and as she walked she noticed the full moon reflected in the pail of water. As she continued along the path the bamboo strip that held the pail staves broke.
WOODBLOCK PRINT OF CHIYONO, BY YOSHITOSHI
1839-1892
The pail began to come apart, the bottom broke through, and the water disappeared into the soil beneath her feet, the moon's reflection disappearing along with it. In that moment Chiyono realized that the moon she had been looking at was just a reflection of the real thing...just as her whole life had been...she turned to look at the moon in all it's silent glory, and ...that was it. Like the moonlight driven event surrounding the Enlightenment of the mysterious wandering monk Totapuri, or similar moonlight driven event foretold by the Wanderling's Zen Mentor and described in Dark Luminosity, Chiyono herself disappeared. She was NOT ----- and what IS, was.
Afterwards she wrote the following
"This way and that way
I tried to keep the pail of water together,
hoping the weak bamboos
would never break
But suddenly the bottom fell out:
no more water
no more moon in the water
and emptiness in my hand!"
In the thirteenth century an extraordinarily realistic portrait statue (chinso chokoku) was carved depicting Abbess Mugai Nyodai in her seventies. Chinso statues are a category of remarkably realistic life-sized statues of the seated figures of historical Zen masters made as substitutes for the living person to convey the essence of the Zen master to his disciples after his death. This statue, the only thirteenth-century portrait statue of a female Zen master extant.
COURTSEY: INSTITUTE FOR MEDIEVAL JAPANESE STUDIES
Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.
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