Bell Hammer Song

Katsu

Zen Buddhist texts on Rinzai have the Master shouting frequently "katsu." According to Irmgard Schloegl in her book, "The Zen Teaching of Rinzai." the katsu was "Rinzai's famous shout and favoite teaching device, pronounced 'kaa.'"

When I read the teaching stories, I was always puzzled by the katsu. I thought it was something like "Mu," that is, an incomprehensible teaching device. When voiced, it was always in exclamation! Used in combination with a fly whisk or stick, his katsu (shout) clarified the esssence of the moment.

Obaku or Huang Po was Rinzai's teacher while Hakuin was Rinzai's student. I have no information about their personal relationships, but I respect them all as very real teachers. Like a tiger, Rinzai was querrelsome and quite ferocious in his passion for the dharmic transmission of "satori." A "true man of no status," he was an impeccable master of koan practice. One of the Five Houses of Zen, his sect survived until this day.

Like the Sasquatch in "Song of the Sasquatch" or the early Buddhist adept, Nagarjuna, both had "nothing left to know," or, emptiness itself. Articulated by Nagarjuna in the Mayayana awakening of Buddhism, emptiness was the key to Buddhist experience and identity.

I must admit the flash of a katsu, ot the meaning of its exclamation, finally occurred to me one day by accident. It was nothing like what I expected. If anything, it bore many parallels to the exasperation and frustration of the "hair-pulling" experience, which could be accompanied by many other voicings, besides "kaa!"

All in all, just giving a katsu was preferable to thinking, especially if one was flummoxed by a student or the tiger needed walking! Katsu said what did not need to be said but was said anyway. It was ridiculous, exhilarating and highly instinctive at once. It went against most opinion, especially of one's self. No more, no less.