White Monkeys, Black Monkeys

“I thought it was a white monkey but there is a black monkey too.” 

This saying is attributed to Yuanwu (Blue Cliff Record commentator) and is quoted by Sen’ne (one of Dogen’s three successors) in presenting the following lines from the Genjokoan:

All things coming and carrying out practice/verification through the self is realization (trans., Shohaku Okumura). 

This came to mind recently when I saw a short piece by an American Zen teacher exalting the fundamental in the most one-sided way. He was a guy carrying a plank on his shoulder in that moment (so he could see only one side). Like the fox priest pictured above, he oughta go on pilgrimage – get a new set of tires and travel around to find someone that can help him work through the other side.

When most people begin practice they’re looking for the white monkey and want to avoid the black monkey (or the reverse) at all costs. At such a time, we are vulnerable to exploitation by spiritual posers. 

When we think the buddhadharma is the white monkey, the calm mind, and not the black monkey, the crazy mind or the whinny mind or the angry mind, we pick up a plank, set it on our shoulders, and bang into door frames, friends, and even foxes.

But Yuanwu says it is a white monkey and a black monkey too. Dogen says chasing things is delusion and allowing it to advance and carrying out the practice is enlightenment. White monkey, black monkey … and the whole rainbow of colors too, this monkey and that monkey. 

I notice that my dog, Bodhi (the happiest person I know), is totally into the phenomenal world with or without much discrimination (I don’t know what kind of discrimination he’s got going). He sniffs and licks his way along. Garbage, butts, crotches, poop, flowers, tomatoes, urine from a dog who passed a week ago … the whole shebang with a vigorously wagging tail.  

“The Way is not difficult, just don’t pick and choose,” is the Zen dog life.

But for us Zen humans, a few reminders:

I thought it was good but there is bad too.

I thought it was right but there is wrong too.

I thought it was sacred but there is profane too. 

I thought it was practice but there is pathology too. 

The priest-as-a-fox scroll, by the way, hangs up in the dokusan room here just a couple feet from where we sit when we meet here. 

So … I thought he was a priest but there is a fox too and … I thought s/he was a student but there is a fox too.