不知最親切 fuchi mottomo shinsetsu Not Knowing is Most Intimate
This is a philological study of the Zen phrase 不知最親切 (fuchi mottomo shinsetsu), not knowing is the closest of all, from 法眼文益's tenth-century awakening exchange with 桂琛 through 萬松行秀's warning against reading it as blank indifference to R. H. Blyth's 1964 English.
Abstract
不知最親切, fuchi mottomo shinsetsu, not knowing is the closest of all, is the reply the master Jizō Keichin 地藏桂琛 (Dizang Guichen, 867–928) gave the young Hōgen Mon'eki 法眼文益 (Fayan Wenyi, 885–958): asked mid-pilgrimage what his pilgrimage was about, Hōgen said he did not know, and Keichin told him that not-knowing was the closest thing of all. First written up in the 景德傳燈錄 of 1004, the exchange became case 20 of the 從容録 of Banshō Gyōshū 萬松行秀 (Wansong Xingxiu, 1166–1246) in 1224, where Banshō warns that this not-knowing is not blank indifference — a warning every reader of the line needs and few expect. R. H. Blyth carried it into English in 1964 as "Don't-know is the most intimate."
Overview
The sense. One exchange, two shapes, one warning. In the oldest text and in the koan collection, Hōgen awakens at the line; in the hymnal he warms his hands and awakens a month later at something else, and the line is four characters long. Every Japanese reader from 1224 on has had Banshō's caution in front of them: the not-knowing that is closest is not the not-knowing of a blank mind, and a reader who takes the line as just don't know has missed the awakening it records. The 1906 lecturer hears it as the pilgrim's own condition; the 1915 commentator hears the end of study; Blyth in 1964 hears a joke against philosophy. The phrase book cut it to four characters and read it as plain Japanese, not knowing, closest of all.
The words. 不知, fuchi, is not knowing. 精選版日本国語大辞典 gives three senses: 知らないこと, not to know; 知恵がないこと, to lack wisdom; and the Buddhist 無明, the ignorance that veils the truth [1]. The whole koan turns on the first against the third, and the master who wrote it up says so. 最, mottomo, is most. 親切, shinsetsu, is the word that misleads. In Japanese today it means kind, considerate, and that sense is Muromachi Japanese, first attested in the 1470s; in a Song Chan text the word means close, intimate, right on the point, which 普及版字通 gives as ゆきとどき、よくあてはまる and the 精選版日国 as its first sense, 深くはなはだしいこと … 心の底からであること, deep and thorough, from the bottom of the heart, with an eighth-century attestation [1]. The Japanese phrase book of 1889 glosses it with the kunten 親シ, shitashi, close [2]. Intimate, the English Blyth chose in 1964, covers the Chinese sense of closeness without distance. It does not carry the other Chan shade, apt, exactly to the point, which the master's own interlinear comment plays on. Most intimate is a faithful rendering, not a complete one; no single English word covers both. The reading every Japanese Zen text gives the five-character line reads 最 as the adverb mottomo: a 1915 commentary prints it so with furigana, ふち・もっとも・しんせつ [3]. The four-character form in the phrase book, 不知最親, is read shirazu mottomo shitashi [2].
The text in English. The English begins with Blyth in 1964, Don't-know is the most intimate, and Cleary in 1990, Not knowing is nearest. Intimate is Blyth's word; nearest is Cleary's; the wording Not Knowing is Most Intimate is the title of neither.
The historical record
1004. Daoyuan 道原, 景德傳燈錄, book 24, the life of Mon'eki 清涼文益, called Hōgen 法眼. The young monk Mon'eki, on pilgrimage, shelters from rain at a temple in Fuzhou where the master Jizō Keichin 地藏桂琛 (Dizang Guichen, 867–928) is teaching. 琛問曰。上座何往。師曰。邐迤行脚去。曰行脚事作麼生。師曰不知。曰不知最親切。師豁然開悟, 琛 asked: where are you going, senior? He said: on pilgrimage, wandering as I go. What is this pilgrimage business? He said: I don't know. Not knowing is the closest of all. At that the master awoke [4]. The exchange belongs to the biography of Hōgen, founder of one of the five houses of Chan, written some fifty years after his death; this is its oldest text.
The twelfth century, written up 1224. The verse of Wanshi Shōgaku 宏智正覺 (Hongzhi Zhengjue, 1091–1157), the 天童 of the 從容録, and Banshō's 從容録, case 20, 地藏親切. Wanshi chose the exchange as one of his hundred cases and wrote a verse on it; Banshō wrote the 從容録 around the verses in 1224, with a preface, interlinear comments and two evaluations for each. The case: 舉。地藏問法眼。上座何往。眼云。迤邐行脚。藏云。行脚事作麼生。眼云。不知。藏云。不知最親切。眼豁然大悟, and between the lines Banshō's asides, at 不知最親切 the words 就身打劫, robbing him on his own body, which is to say the reply uses only what the student brought. His evaluation is the warning that the whole later tradition stands on: 南泉道。道不屬知。不屬不知。知是妄覺。不知是無記。今人見道不知最親切。更是法眼悟頭。便一向不知不會。只這是也。殊不知。古人一句子。如天普蓋。似地普擎, 南泉 said: the Way does not belong to knowing or to not-knowing; knowing is false awareness, not-knowing is blank indifference. People today see "not knowing is the closest of all" and that it was where 法眼 awoke, and go straight to not-knowing and not-understanding, saying: this is it. They do not realize that the old man's one sentence covers like the sky and bears up like the earth. And on the awakening itself: 法眼大悟元來這不知却親切, 法眼 awoke: so this not-knowing was the closest thing after all. The verse: 而今參飽似當時／脫盡簾纖到不知／任短任長休剪綴／隨高隨下自平治 …, now that I have studied to the full it is as it was then; shedding every last thread I arrive at not-knowing; let short be short and long be long, stop cutting and stitching; high or low, it levels itself [5]. The not-knowing of the verse's second line is the one reached by shedding everything, not the one before setting out. Wanshi wrote the verses; the book with its warnings is Banshō's and thirteenth-century; the exchange itself is older than both.
The thirteenth century. Xisou Shaotan 紹曇, 五家正宗贊, the hymnal of the five houses, on Hōgen. A different shape of the same story, and a shorter line. 入堂，見藏坐地爐，問師：此行何之？曰：行脚去。曰：行脚事作麼生？曰：不知。曰：不知最親 三人附火, he went into the hall and saw 地藏 sitting at the sunken hearth, who asked: where does this journey go? Pilgrimage. What is this pilgrimage business? I don't know. Not knowing is the closest. The three of them warmed themselves at the fire [6]. Here the line is four characters, no awakening follows it, and the great awakening comes a month later at another sentence, 若論佛法，一切見成, if you speak of the Buddha's teaching, everything is already complete. This is the shape Blyth would tell in 1964.
1889 and 1894. The 禪林句集, the phrase book of Japanese Zen, in two editions. Among the four-character phrases: 不知最親, with the kunten 不知ラ最モ親シ, shirazu mottomo shitashi, not knowing, closest of all, and a head note sending the reader to 正宗賛法眼章, the hymnal's chapter on Hōgen [2]. The Japanese phrase book took the four-character form, not the five; the design brushes the five, which is the koan's and the oldest.
1906. 高田道見, 従容録講話, lectures on the koan collection. その不知こそ行脚に於て最も親切な所ではないか, is not that very not-knowing the closest thing there is in a pilgrimage?, and 就身打劫 glossed as 剝取て仕舞ふ, to strip him bare [7].
1915. 神保如天, 従容録通解, a full commentary with the Japanese reading. The case printed with Banshō's asides in small type, then the reading: 藏云く、不知最も親切。眼、豁然として大悟す, with the furigana ふち・もっとも・しんせつ; then the gloss, 其の不知は最も親切である、行脚の事徹底不知ならば其れが最も參禪に親しい處、參學の事了畢矣, that not-knowing is the closest thing; if the pilgrimage is thoroughly not-known, that is the place closest to Zen study, and the work of study is finished; and on the verse, 如今は岐路鬼徑を盡く脫落して、眞實不知最も親切と云ふ境界に到達した, now, having shed every byway and ghost-path, he has arrived at the state where truly not-knowing is the closest of all [3]. This is the witness for the reading fuchi mottomo shinsetsu.
What is not a source. The Song collections that also carry the exchange — the 五燈會元, 聯燈會要 and 宗門統要 — are later compilations; the 景德傳燈錄's tenth-century text is enough to date the story and the koan collection to fix its shape. A paraphrase sometimes given for the exchange, Then Jizo asked why, is in no witness: 行脚事作麼生 asks what is this pilgrimage business, and the I don't know answers that. Neither American proverb collection carries the line, which is right, since it is not a proverb.
The phrase in English
1964. R. H. Blyth, Zen and Zen Classics, volume 2, Hokuseido, pages 66–67, the chapter on Hōgen. "Just on an angya, slanting about." "What is angya?" said Keichin. "I don't know," said Hogen. "Don't-know is the most intimate," said Keichin. Blyth tells the hymnal's shape, the fire, a stone in the garden, a month's stay, and ends At this, Hogen was profoundly enlightened; then, Buddhism, that is, Zen, is not philosophy, but it is not no-philosophy [8].
1990. Thomas Cleary, Book of Serenity, case 20, Dizang's "Nearness", page 85. Dizang asked Fayan, "Where are you going?" Fayan said, "Around on pilgrimage." Dizang said, "What is the purpose of pilgrimage?" Fayan said, "I don't know." Dizang said, "Not knowing is nearest." His commentary keeps the word — If not knowing is nearest, then what about Heze's saying — and closes the case on it: Fayan was greatly enlightened, that actually this not knowing is the nearest. [9]
Today. The house title, Not Knowing is Most Intimate, renders the line faithfully in the Chinese sense of 親切. What a rendering must keep: intimate or close, never kind; not-knowing as the condition Hōgen was in, not a recommendation of ignorance. The reading fuchi mottomo shinsetsu is the one the Japanese Zen texts give; the romaji fuchi sai shinsetsu spells out the on-reading of 最 as if the line were a compound, and no witness reads it that way.
A reading
The text is sound as brushed: 不知最親切 is the canon's oldest wording and the koan collection's, and Not Knowing is Most Intimate renders it in the Chinese sense of the word. The dating and authorship sometimes given for it conflate the twelfth-century verses with the thirteenth-century book and both with the tenth-century exchange; the verses are Wanshi's, the book with its warnings is Banshō's, and the exchange predates both. Banshō's warning is the one thing a reader of this line most needs and least expects: the master who wrote the book says outright that not-knowing here is not blank indifference, and a reader who takes the line as just don't know has missed Hōgen's awakening.
My own reading is that the line is the gentlest koan in the collection and the easiest to get wrong, for the same reason. It was said to a young man who had just admitted he did not know what he was doing, and it told him that this was the nearest he had come.
Sources not seen
Gerry Shishin Wick, The Book of Equanimity: Illuminating Classic Zen Koans, Wisdom Publications, 2005, case 20, a second American translation of the collection outside this house's collection; it would give its own rendering of the line.
A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.
References
- 「不知」「親切」, 精選版 日本国語大辞典 · 普及版字通, at kotobank.
- 『禪林句集』, 1889 and 1894 printings. National Diet Library pid 899715, scan 29; pid 875204, scan 19. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/899715/1/29
- 神保如天『従容録通解』, 1915. National Diet Library pid 943578, scans 94–96. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/943578/1/95
- 道原『景德傳燈錄』卷24, the life of 法眼文益, at CBETA. Taishō T51n2076, p. 398b10–12. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T2076&juan=24
- 萬松行秀『從容録』, case 20, 1224. Taishō T48n2004, p. 240a04–c08, at CBETA. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T2004&juan=2
- 紹曇『五家正宗贊』, on 法眼, at CBETA. 卍新纂續藏經 X78n1554, p. 619b04–19. https://cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=X1554&juan=4
- 高田道見『従容録講話』, 1906. National Diet Library pid 823143, scan 176.
- R. H. Blyth, Zen and Zen Classics, volume 2, Hokuseido, 1964, pp. 66–67.
- Thomas Cleary, translator, Book of Serenity: One Hundred Zen Dialogues, Shambhala, first paperback edition (© 1988, published by arrangement with Lindisfarne Press), case 20, p. 85.