Zen Master Hakuin and Ji Kang

Zen Master Hakuin was the restorer of the Rinzai school in Japan. Near the temple where Hakuin practiced lived a family with a young unmarried daughter who had an illicit affair and bore a child. This enraged her parents, and her father pressed her to name the child's biological father. Cornered, and afraid to tell the truth, she said the child was Hakuin's.

The girl's father stormed off with the newborn child to find Hakuin, furiously denounced him as morally corrupt, and handed the child over for him to raise. Hakuin merely said, "Oh, is that so?" Without defending himself, he took the child and raised it. Because of this, believers near and far no longer respected or trusted Hakuin, and the temple incense fell off considerably. But none of this affected Hakuin; he silently begged alms around and brought the child up through hardship.

A year later, the girl could finally bear her conscience no longer and told her parents the truth, revealing who the child's real father was—certainly not Hakuin. Her father was deeply ashamed, ran to the temple to apologize to Hakuin, and took the child back. Again Hakuin merely said, "Oh, is that so?"

In the Han-Shan-Shi-De Wendui Lu (Dialogues of Hanshan and Shide), Hanshan asked Shide: "In the world there are people who slander me, bully me, insult me, laugh at me, belittle me, or treat me as base. How should I deal with them?" Shide smiled and said: "Just bear with him, yield to him, avoid him, let him be, endure him, respect him, and pay him no mind; in a few more years, just watch him."

The exchange between Hanshan and Shide was truly lived out by Hakuin. People have offered various explanations for the mistaken-paternity episode involving Hakuin. Personally, I think Hakuin could do this because he had cultivated great samadhi power and was deeply compassionate. When a person has cultivated to this realm, even if the human world were like a furnace, he could dwell in it as if in a cool place, at ease in this dusty world.

Recently I read Ji Kang's renowned masterwork, Letter of Breaking with Shan Juyuan. I was quite impressed by Ji Kang's talent, but also deeply regretful of his unyielding, brittle disposition. If Ji Kang had had a little of the ability to combine firmness with gentleness, and the samadhi of Hakuin, he would never have been executed.

The Letter of Breaking with Shan Juyuan was a letter Ji Kang wrote to break off relations with his good friend Shan Tao (Shan Tao, courtesy name Juyuan) after Shan Tao recommended Ji Kang to the court to take over his own post.

Ji Kang by nature loved freedom and disliked restraint; he had no interest in officialdom, "longing for the tall forest and setting his heart in the lush grass." He only wished to live a free life of plowing and reading, raising his son and daughter to adulthood. Ji Kang felt that Shan Tao did not understand his temperament and was pushing him onto the fire, unworthy of being a soulmate, so he was angered and wrote this breaking-off letter.

Ji Kang's Letter of Breaking with Shan Juyuan is less a letter actually meant to break with Shan Tao than a message to those in power, letting them know his disinterest in office. Shan Tao was a very reliable friend; far from deeming him unworthy of friendship, Ji Kang, on his deathbed, entrusted his children to Shan Tao.

Ji Kang also knew his own disposition was deeply problematic. In the Letter he wrote: "Ruan Sizong (Ruan Ji) never spoke of others' faults; I often try to emulate him but cannot match him. He is extraordinarily sincere and harmless to things, except that he drinks too much. He has been arraigned by the moralists and hated like an enemy, and was fortunate only that the Grand General protected him. I lack Sizong's endowments and have instead the fault of being careless and unruly; I do not understand human feelings and am oblivious to what is opportune; I lack the caution of the Wan Shi lords and have the flaw of always speaking to the end. If long in contact with affairs, faults and provocations will arise daily; though I wish for no trouble, can I avoid it?"

This shows that Ji Kang deeply understood the harm of his own overly upright disposition; he was a man of feeling, however, and it was truly too hard to change. In his posthumous instructions to his son, the Jia Jie (Family Admonitions), Ji Kang revealed the wish that his son not imitate his own unyielding, unbending ways.

Su Shi said: "Han Yu (courtesy name Tuizhi) said, 'I can bend myself in the world, but how could I follow you in nesting with immortals?' With a temperament like Tuizhi's, even if he left the world he could not be tolerated by others; Shuye (Ji Kang, courtesy name Shuye) was even more stubborn and blunt than Tuizhi." Su Shi's point is that Han Yu's temper was also unyielding and upright; such a person could not be tolerated by the crowd even if he left society. And Ji Kang's temper was even more extreme than Han Yu's. So Ji Kang's execution was a tribulation he could not escape.

Ji Kang was a brilliant talent, with a quiet, indifferent disposition, set on staying away from the strife of the court and content to be a follower of Laozi and Zhuangzi; yet in the end he was killed by those in power because his character was too upright. As he himself said: "My nature is upright and narrow, and I cannot bear many things." Such a temperament, even if one wanted to be a hermit outside the world, would inevitably be envied by the age. The outstanding easily break; the tree that stands out in the forest will be felled by the wind. Ji Kang's death was truly sown in this.

Liu Xie, in his Wenxin Diaolong (The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons), evaluated Ji Kang's Letter of Breaking with Shan Juyuan thus: "Ji Kang's Breaking-off Letter is indeed lofty in purpose and grand in prose." Generally, those of surpassing talent are already envied by the age; if their temper is also too upright, they easily fall victim to others. Although Ji Kang was detached from the world, he could not escape a violent death; it is truly lamentable.

But if a person lacks a little of Ji Kang's spontaneous innocence, life becomes both false and tiring. If one could be as free and untrammeled as Ji Kang and yet have the extraordinary samadhi of Hakuin, able to settle oneself in any society, that would be perfect.