Unspoken Transmissions
Zhong Kui and The Flower Sermon
24. His disciples said to him, “Show us the place where you are, since it is necessary for us to seek it.” He said to them, “Whoever has ears, let him hear. There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world. If he does not shine, he is darkness.”
-The Gospel of Thomas
I knew Zhong Kui before I knew him, which is usually the case with good folklore. The folklore that matters is so embedded in culture that it becomes impossible to uncouple it, and impossible to locate single sources due to the long process of syncretization that legends, faiths, and philosophies go through. I saw Zhong Kui when I didn’t know his name, tattooed across the arms and bellies and backs of the eventual corpses I aspired to look like, the centerpiece of bodysuits and sleeves that transcend modernity. Whether by electric needle or tebori stick and poke, Zhong Kui has been permanently etched beneath the skin of countless men and women through generations.
I didn’t know him as Zhong Kui at first. I knew him as Shoki, because that was his name in Japan, and most of my entryways into Asian culture happened through Japanese cultural exports. Akira was the first film that I vividly remember looking like nothing I’d seen before, shown in second grade by my older brother–overzealous in the art he felt his younger brother could hang with, such that I’m grateful to him for it. Some people have a tough time tracing their hangups. Mine is the nuke, and the first piece of resonant art in my life was Akira. Pretty direct link, but as I’ve grappled with the way I think about formative narratives, something perhaps more complicated underlies it: my formative narrative about nuclear war wasn’t history class or an American film about the heroism of World War 2, but a neofuturist work about the bleak culture left in the wake of unspeakable tragedy. The nuke was never something I had to hem and haw about, or tell myself delusional tales of its necessity because “the Japanese just wouldn’t stop coming” (a narrative I vividly remember from high school history class). It was bad because it destroyed an entire generation of people, which I derived from a movie about Japanese kids on motorcycles and telekinesis.
You don’t get to pick how you learn stuff. There was a great Steve Albini interview on the now-twice-defunct Mel Magazine where he talked about the ways that communities formed over these obscure pieces of culture. It’s probably not ideal that I learned about some of the emotional fallout of the nuclear bomb from an adaptation of a sci-fi manga comic. Then again, given the alternatives available to me at the time–either public school propaganda about US History or western-penned Orientalist fantasies about the Japanese–it sometimes feels like a leg up on the competition. I’ve seen what western brains say about nuclear war. There’s nothing there for me; for anyone.
“Emperor Wu of Liang asked the great master Bodhidharma, “What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?” Bodhidharma said, “Empty, without holiness.”
The Emperor said, “Who is facing me?” Bodhidharma replied, “I don't know.”
The Emperor did not understand.
After this Bodhidharma crossed the Yangtse River and came to the kingdom of Wei. Later the Emperor brought this up to Master Chih and asked him about it. Master Chih asked, “Does your majesty know who this man is?” The Emperor said, “I don't know.” Master Chih said, “He is the Mahasattva Avalokitesvara, transmitting the Buddha Mind Seal.” The Emperor felt regretful, so he wanted to send an emissary to go invite (Bodhidharma to return). Master Chih told him, “Your majesty, don't say that you will send someone to fetch him back. Even if everyone in the whole country were to go after him, he still wouldn't return.”
-The Blue Cliff Record
In the same way Akira introduced me to invaluable perspective about the damages of Western neocolonialism via pop culture, the images of Shoki that I saw etched into hides forever reorganized my mind. The first and most basic way is quite literal: I’d never seen Japanese tattooing before, and the differences are in more than just subject matter. Traditional American tattooing was initially focused on reproducing flash and boardwalk style carnival barking for customers, and the tattoos reflect that: bold colors and thick lines, but often compact and meant to be finished in a two-hour session. An American traditional “sleeve” of tattoos is often individual symbols arranged and puzzled together rather than one cohesive work. Compare that with the tradition of tebori sleeves and bodysuits in Japan, where customers would often have a standing two to four hour appointment every two weeks, the tattooer continually adding to a massive design that they agreed on beforehand. Japanese tattooing always felt far more personal and intimate; a sacred continuation of an ongoing conversation rather than a loud statement meant to disrupt the flow of existence. Aside from the technique and tradition, the visual appearance is also strikingly different. The best bodysuits are usually uninterrupted stories from top to bottom, depicting specific legends filled with a visual vocabulary seared into the minds of those embedded in cultural parables with genuinely prehistoric origins.
In other words, while it may not look like it to the average Westerner, a bodysuit featuring a massive hulk of a man beheading small demons with a samurai sword is akin to getting a Rock of Ages tattoo (perhaps the most persistent Western Christian tattoo design, a woman clinging to the stone cross in troubled waters). The bodysuits that featured Shoki differ by artist, but usually show him with a furrowed brow and perked ears towards his next target, holding a demon grasped by the scruff of its neck in one hand and the sword about to deliver the killing blow in the other–the work of a demon slayer is never done, as new negative thoughts manifest every second of every day. Perhaps the most important detail to remember, and one that perhaps always made him stand out to me, is this: he’s ugly. Unlike the elegant samurai or emperors or Buddhas depicted in Japanese tattoos, Shoki is a grumpy and overweight man with crooked features and a flattened nose that looks like it’s been broken a few times.
I saw Shoki many years ago in a tattoo on some social platform–likely Instagram–and was caught by surprise to see he wasn’t named Shoki in that tattoo. The artist labeled him differently, because the artist wasn’t Japanese, but Chinese. “Shoki” was Zhong Kui to this artist, and my obsession with him only grew from there. Again, you don’t pick how you learn things, and there aren’t a lot of places here in the United States that are rushing to introduce people to esoteric Chinese folklore. As a result, finding out that my favorite tattoo subject had a history that likely didn’t originate in Japan kind of rewired my brain even further. Where the hell did this guy come from? There are tantalizing hints in the legend itself, the imagery, and the slight evolution of its meaning and application over time.
Tracing it backwards, we can start with Zhong Kui himself. The demon hunting / beheading isn’t just tattooer flourish, but a foundational part of Zhong Kui’s role in the greater cosmology of Chinese theology. Zhong Kui was as ugly as he looks in the tattoos, a monster of a man who was also blessed with a brilliant mind. A top scholar, he commits suicide because he loses a prestige based on his looks, and is going to be sent to a hellish realm of existence for committing such a grave offense. But during divine judgment, his mind and determination are considered far too special to relegate to the capital of hell, and thus the divine judge taps him to manage all the ghosts causing trouble for people.
Venerated by numerous faiths, Zhong Kui is often associated with the Wufu, or the five blessings needed to live a good life. That number matters quite a bit here, because his physical appearance is also similar to another important Buddhist figure: the immovable one, Fudo Myo-o, who sits at the center as the fifth Great Buddha, wielding a giant sword atop a flaming throne. Fudo Myo-o’s great wisdom is what allows him to remain the Immovable One, his flaming sword capable of destroying any who would try to bring harm but his other hand occupied as he waits patiently for all comers. Fudo Myo-o answers to nobody, except for the divine.
Aside from the resemblance to Fudo Myo-o in appearance and association with great wisdom and strength, there’s also remarkable similarity between Zhong Kui and Daruma dolls, a Buddhist trinket that has been dated to the 11th century. Like Zhong Kui, the Daruma doll is cloaked in red and has a grumpy, furrowed face. Like Fudo Myo-o, the Daruma doll has issues with its eyes, normally arriving blank and being filled in ceremoniously as the doll’s holder achieves a goal; the first eye is filled in to symbolize setting the goal, the second eye filled in once the goal is accomplished. Daruma dolls, like Shoki, Zhong Kui, and Fudo Myo-o, is a popular tattoo concept that has existed since before anyone can really measure, given the inability to carbon date something that decomposes with the rest of the human body upon death. However, unlike Zhong Kui or Fudo Myo-o, both of which have been syncretized enough across faiths that it’s impossible to precisely trace the direct influential factors that led to their creation, the Daruma doll has a pretty direct influence. They started showing up in the Song Dynasty when cultural and religious reverence for the Bodhidharma–the 28th Patriarch in an uninterrupted line the original Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama–was reaching its most advanced stage. Given that everyone to this point has been a fictional character, it’s worth being clear that Bodhidharma was a real guy, and is widely considered the first patriarch of Chinese Buddhism.
As far as real life “wisdom kings” in Buddhist theology go, there are few, if any, that can match the Bodhidharma in influence and ubiquity. Considered the intellectual starting place of what we’d now consider Zen Buddhism in the West, Cha’an Buddhism, and Bodhidharma’s advancement of theories of detachment helped distinguish him. Before getting into that, though, we should note his appearance. Bodhidharma was ugly. Called the blue-eyed barbarian, Bodhidharma didn’t look like other Chinese people he came to help along the path to enlightenment, and was often depicted as a massive man draped in red robes with big, searing eyes. Sound familiar?
One of the earliest parables in the Blue Cliff Record, a formative text compiled during the Song Dynasty in the 12th century, shows the Bodhidharma appearing before an emperor and refusing to reveal personal information. When he is dismissed, the emperor later finds out of his great wisdom and status among Buddhists and asks that someone retrieve Bodhidharma to provide him counsel. The emperor is rebuffed and told that nobody would be able to convince him to return, as he does not recognize the authority of man. His knowledge made him immovable. His soul was completely leadened.
Buddhism may feel foreign to people in the West who are used to Christian frameworks, but at the core of its theology is the same reverence for an undying search for truth within the self; a seemingly unkillable instinct to understand our place in a world we continually trick ourselves into thinking we’ve figured out. The key difference I’ve found is usually in approach and what is centered: the Bodhidharma never centered himself, instead choosing to act on wisdom provided to him by the natural world and his place in it. Jesus Christ (as depicted in the Holy Bible, which is probably the worst holy text on Earth in terms of politically motivated revisions, if we’re being honest) centered himself in the world.
[Blog note: Weed Church does not endorse the Holy Bible and suggests skipping the New Testament altogether. A complete slog and unreliable folklore from people who had little or nothing to do with the material origins of Christianity. Instead, consume The Gospel of Thomas, which is theorized to possibly be the original Islamic gospel of Christ, and presents a version of Jesus Christ that is far more compatible for the modern world. Notably, this version of Jesus Christ also does not center himself in the world, but centers the natural world and man’s creations within it as the God that we must answer to and live in accordance with. Very different, and almost no individualism. In fact, Christ repeatedly denies his divinity to his apostles in the Gospel of Thomas.]
By centering the world, the Bodhidharma never risks coming in conflict with the self. The true path opens up with little to no resistance, because when the self is taken out of the central position in a religion, it becomes easier to stop seeing things in a dualist “good / evil” framework. Nothing that the world does is good or bad. It just is. Everything that is happening is never happening to you, but happening for you. Even the most horrific things done by evil men are not your concern, aside from weighing on your conscience and bringing you closer to a divine understanding of our place in the universe. This isn’t to say these things should be ignored, nor would the Bodhidharma encourage such an irresponsible approach to the material world. It’s right there in his teachings–teachings that eventually led to Buddhist uprisings during the Song Dynasty, meaning that these weren’t exactly messages of nonviolent or peaceful acceptance of the world around you. Our role is to alter the souls and minds of men, because we can’t fight nature or our instinct to overcome it, and to the Manichaen and Maitreyan Buddhist sects of the Song Dynasty using violence as the vehicle for change was well within the accepted theology. But it was different, because unlike the Christian imperialists in Rome and England, many of these folks were killing people that tried to steal their land and belongings instead of marching into another culture and cutting heads for refusing to kneel. Violence as a means of defense, rather than violence as a means of evangelism.
Perhaps the most famous teaching of the Bodhidharma is that of the Flower Sermon. The Buddha sat in front of gathered devotees waiting to hear his wisdom, but he said nothing. Instead, he retrieved a flower and admired it, rolling it around in his fingertips, gazing at the way the sunlight made its petals translucent. As the crowd grew impatient, the Buddha saw one of his disciples smile at the flower, no longer looking at the Buddha in anticipating but instead admiring the beauty of the world with the same knowing glance. There is an understanding and iterative knowledge contained within us. It does not require verbal communication. It only requires an open and undisturbed mind. That should be easy enough, right?
When I read the Bodhidharma’s words, I find myself overcome with a sense of knowing and spiritual reverence. It’s not that I’m remembering the times that I’ve come to similar conclusions as him, but that I’m unable to remember when I didn’t know this. I can’t locate a starting place for it. I’ve always felt it. And I was obsessed with Zhong Kui before I knew a single thing about the Bodhidharma; obsessed with alternate perspectives and a creeping sense of dread that the people around me who were telling me the things I was learning might not be operating at full capacity.
The rationalist in me wants to chalk all that up to a natural process of cultural osmosis; a subconscious culling of the mind happening in the background as I absorb various signifiers and ideas that make it feel as if I’ve already known the Bodhidharma since before I discovered his work. But the Buddha also told me that I’m not supposed to believe in things that bring me in conflict with the self, and that doesn’t feel right to me. It feels like the Bodhidharma has been pumping through my blood forever. It feels like I saw him on a VHS tape that my brother wasn’t supposed to show me, or that the VHS tape and everything that came after appealed to me because he was there before that.
Have a good Sunday.
All the Best,
Casey