8 - TRANSCENDENCE: “going beyond” Huang Po

Summary

Master, You conduct a memorial service for the late Master Yunyen. Are you in accordance with his teaching? Half accord, half not, replied the Master (Tung-shan). Why not complete accord? If I were entirely in accordance, I would have been ungrateful to him.

Transmission of the Lamp

True masters go beyond the highest standards of excellence known to their contemporaries. They extend those standards thereby establishing their own authority as master practitioners and enriching the goods that can be pursued and achieved by their successors.

Jeffrey Stout

The Transmission of the Lamp tells us that when the young postulant, Huang Po, first came to see the Zen master Pai-chang, the teacher said to him: “If your ‘awakening’ is identical to that of your teacher, your power will be merely half of his. Only when you are capable of ‘going beyond’ your teacher will you have truly received the transmission.” If we accept this understanding of the matter, then Paichang's “transmission of mind” to Huang Po will have been effective and complete only at the point that Huang Po has transcended Paichang's “mind” in the act of creatively “going beyond” it. If each “enlightened mind” goes beyond its predecessor, then each would be more than the replication of a pre-given identity. Can “transcendence” or “awakening” appear in forms that transcend each other successively? Apparently. The quotes above suggest that receiving transmission from one's teacher with due respect requires that you pass beyond and extend the highest achievements of the lineage. By the time we get to the texts transmitting the mind of Huang Po's disciple, Lin-chi, “going beyond” is greatly accentuated.