When two blades cross points
There's no need to withdraw.
The master swordsman
Is like the lotus blooming in the fire.
Such a man has in and of himself
A heaven-soaring spirit.
--Poem on the Fourth Rank
Great Master Tozan
translated by Ruth Fuller Sasaki in Zen Dust
quoted in A History of Zen by Dr. Y. H. Ku
Here is a question: Why is there a Fourth Rank? Things are looking very good in the Third Rank: the invitation from the Eternal has been accepted; a spiritual clean-up has happened; the house of body and mind has been refurbished in the beneficent flood of Teaching. Why not just stay in the Third Rank?
Throughout these Reflections, I have emphasized that training and enlightenment constitute a process. There is no static state of attainment within this process or, indeed, in any other area of human life. The beneficent flood of Teaching is not given so that the trainee can sit around polishing his halo. The Third Rank is a new beginning, not an end--a new beginning in which there is great potential for full re-harmonization with the Eternal.
Great Master's poem on the Fourth Rank (at the top of this page) begins with the following lines:
When two blades cross points
There's no need to withdraw.
The master swordsman
Is like the lotus blooming in the fire.
Such a man has in and of himself
A heaven-soaring spirit.
In another of his poems, "The Most Excellent Mirror, Samadhi" (Hokyozammai), Tozan says, "To make to meet two arrows in mid-air goes far beyond the skill of ordinary man." I think that "two blades cross points" means "two blades meet point to point"--like the arrows meeting point to point in mid-air.
The metaphors of the sword blades and arrows meeting point to point, as well as that of the lotus blooming in fire, express the seeming impossibility--from the delusory point of view of self--of acting directly from the Buddha Nature: the "superior activity of No-mind" of which Tozan speaks in The Most Excellent Mirror, Samadhi.
But it is not impossible to listen to, and follow, our own True Nature. It is in fact the natural next step when the house of body and mind has been cleaned in the Second Rank and then refurbished in the Third Rank.
To put it in more general terms, in the Fourth Rank guest is in harmony with Host so that body and mind become the field and vessel of the Eternal's Compassion, Love and Wisdom. This is the guest's rightful position.
In How to Grow a Lotus Blossom, the flow of healing Love of the Eternal through body and mind is emphasized in the Fourth Column. This is another way in which body and mind is a vessel of the Eternal.
In the Five Aspects of Meditation, the Fourth Aspect is "Listen carefully." This meditative attentiveness to the promptings of our own True Nature is the basis of acting from the Buddha Nature.
In the Buddha's Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path that leads to suffering's cessation is detailed in the Fourth Noble Truth. Note that at the deepest level of training, the Eightfold Path becomes less the prescription for how to train than the description of the natural, unselfconscious living from the Buddha Nature. In other words, it becomes the description of the Fourth Rank.
Click here to proceed to Part XLVI, "The Fifth Rank: Host and Guest in Undifferentiated Oneness"
Click here to return to the Table of Contents of Book One: How to Grow a Lotus Blossom: Reflections