In the "Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu," translated by James Green, it says:
A monk asked the master, “I wonder if a person of true practice can be perceived
by gods and demons or not?”
The master said, “They can perceive the person.”
The monk said, “Where is the person’s fault?”
The master said, “Faults are wherever they are looked for.”
The monk said, “In that case, it is not practice.”
The master said, “It is practice.”
The monk asks, “I wonder if a person of true practice can be perceived by
gods and demons or not?” This monk is wondering if there is an enlightened state of mind that can be attained by true
practice where there is no coming and going of gods and demons or is it the case that gods and demons are always with us no
matter what degree of enlightenment we attain. “Gods” means the perception of one’s self being admired and
accepted by all creatures, both heavenly and earthly across the universe, and the expansive and exalted states of mind with
their associated wonderfully pleasant feelings that arise from that condition. “Demons” means the perception
of one’s self being rejected and the terror, rage and blame and the infiltration of it into every pore of the body causing
it to constrict, shrivel and ache. The monk asks his teacher to please clarify this matter for him.
The master says, “They can perceive the person.” Joshu does not become
trapped by his own gods and demons in this encounter with this monk and simply suggests there is a more intimate way that
true practice can be done.
The monk says, “Where is the person’s fault?” The monk falls
into his own demonic realm and perceives that his “true practice” that is to say, he, himself, at the most fundamental
level of his being is being rejected by Joshu, but very courageously and earnestly he presses on and asks his teacher to tell
him, what is it, then, that is “Not OK” about me. Here we can see the deep trust one must have with other human
beings to do Buddhist practice.
Joshu says, “Faults are wherever they are looked for.” This means that
the only place where gods and demons are, or where acceptance and rejection occur are just within our own mind that constantly
seeks, judges and evaluates ourselves and others, measuring by our own internal standards to what degree we have succeeded
and to what degree we have failed.
The monk says, “In that case, it is not practice.” The monk now feels
a double whammy of rejection from Joshu and concludes that the practice he does is not really practice at all. The monk is
experiencing pain and is closing down and rejecting Joshu and himself.
Joshu says, “It is practice.” Joshu does not reject and abandon the
monk and never had any intention of doing so. He encourages the monk to open himself up to the pain he is feeling now and
to realize that he is the only one creating it. He is saying that looking into this matter of how deeply we are constantly
seeking for something outside of ourselves to satisfy ourselves and to create awareness of the depth of this universal human
activity and to accept the pain that results from it, that is to say, the arising of gods and demons, is to actually do authentic
practice.
