Case 7 of the Mumonkan is Joshu’s “Wash Your Bowl.”
A monk has just arrived at the monastery and asks Joshu to teach him.
Joshu asks, “Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes, I have,” the monk replies.
“Then go and wash your bowl.”
The story tells us that the monk gained insight.
Here is my reflection on this kōan.
We have this monk entering a monastery. We can easily imagine how full of good intentions, hopes and expectations he might have been. Isn’t that how it is for many of us? Why do we take up meditation? Why do we join a community of practitioners? Why do we seek a teacher?
In my life, I’ve joined several spiritual communities, starting with Catholicism while growing up in Italy. Later, I encountered meditation in Cambridge. I listened to countless talks on spirituality. I travelled to India three times to live in an ashram. And yes, I was full of expectations.
Expectations kept me going in my practice for a long time. I expected clarity, insight, greater courage, perhaps even the disappearance of negative emotions. Then some things began to change. There was a little more courage, a little more understanding of difficult emotions. But the expectations didn’t disappear. If anything, I wanted more.
I think expectation is natural, and perhaps even necessary, particularly at the beginning. So I would be cautious when someone says that we shouldn’t have any expectations from practice. We don’t usually begin meditating, join a community or seek a teacher without some desire for something to happen.
Different traditions offer different hopes and aspirations: heaven, rebirth, peace with the past, awakening, freedom from suffering. Even small expectations, sometimes barely noticed, can keep us moving.
So here is our monk, freshly arrived at the monastery. I like to imagine him with big expectations. Perhaps he wants insight, powerful teachings, grand sermons, answers to the great questions of life.
He approaches Joshu and asks to be taught.
Joshu asks, “Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“Then go and wash your bowl.”
Not quite the teaching he might have expected.
The story says that the monk gained insight at that moment. We don’t know exactly what happened to him, and perhaps we don’t need to decide.
He had asked for a teaching.
Joshu asked about breakfast.
The monk had eaten.
His bowl needed washing.
I recognise something of myself in that monk. I had a long and enthusiastic career as a spiritual seeker. I even studied philosophy. I was always looking for answers, for something I could rely on, something that would finally make sense.
I sought teachings, traditions and philosophies. I read books. I listened to teachers. I travelled. And I still enjoy reading about Zen and listening to teachers.
There is nothing wrong with searching.
But I also recognise how easy it is for the search itself to become another place to hide. Another book. Another teaching. Another explanation. Another answer somewhere further down the road.
And then Joshu asks:
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Yes.”
“Then go and wash your bowl.”
I could explain what the bowl represents. I could say that Joshu is pointing to the present moment, to ordinary life, to direct experience or to the next thing that needs doing.
Perhaps.
But then I would be giving the monk the grand teaching he originally asked for.
He had already eaten his breakfast.
The bowl was still dirty.
Wash your bowl.
