The Circle of the Way: Reading the Gospel of Thomas as a ChristZen Text

Cross Currents, Wntr, 2002 by Kenneth Arnold

Two other aspects of koan tradition are suggestive for our reading of Thomas.

The koan may be thought of as being "transmitted outside the scriptures," to use the phrase from case 6 of the Gateless Barrier (Mumonkan), in which Sakyamuni (the Buddha) did not speak but held up a flower before the assembly at Vulture Peak. The venerable Kashyapa smiled and received the dharma transmission -- outside the teaching (Low, 64). In this reading, Ch'an (Zen) was a revolution that undermined the scholastic tradition of sutra interpretation and rewrote the history of Buddhism in China according to new criteria. "The Way [consists in] one saying: 'Bodhidharma came from the West, a special transmission outside the teaching.' What is this special transmission of the Way? Directly pointing to the human mind, seeing one's nature and becoming a Buddha" (Welter, 78, 85).

Secondly, the special transmission represented in the koan might be thought of as a "secret, esoteric enlightenment experience...transmitted from mind to mind, not via written texts, between master and disciple" (Welter, 94). A particularly vivid example of this tradition of direct transmission, which evokes the Gnostic mode of secret transmission, is found in The Sutra of Hui-Neng, where the Sixth Patriarch describes how the dharma (the teachings) was passed to him by the Fifth Patriarch Jung-jen.

[I]n the third watch of the night I went to his room. Using the robe as a screen so that none could see us, he expounded the Diamond Sutra to me. When he came to the sentence, "One should use one's mind in such a way that it will be free of any attachment," I at once became thoroughly Enlightened, and realized that all things in the universe are the essence of Mind itself.... Thus, to the knowledge of no one, the dharma was transmitted to me at midnight. (Hui-Neng, 73)

Jesus says in 62 of Thomas, "I disclose my mysteries to those [who are worthy] of [my] mysteries. Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." In 13, Jesus takes Thomas away from the other disciples and speaks three sayings to him that are not recorded. When the others ask him what Jesus said to him, he responds: "If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and consume you." Only the adept, the initiated, are permitted to know the secret. If one were to treat this saying as a koan, the teacher might ask the student: "What did Jesus say to Thomas? If you tell me, I will stone you. If you do not tell me, I will set you on fire."

Thomas is a transmission outside the tradition of Christian scripture. That is one reason it was buried in the fourth century and a major reason that Gnosticism was condemned as heretical. The form of transmission of knowledge embodied in Thomas prevents effective control by a central authority. There is no place for bishops in Thomas, nor for similar protectors of dogma in Zen. There is a process of transmitting Zen authority, but the form of teaching is the opposite of dogmatic. As the translator Thomas Cleary notes in his introduction to another koan collection, the Book of Serenity, Zen literature as it developed in China was designed to engage "the reader in mental dialogue rather than professing doctrines and dogmas....As a matter of practical principle [Zen] commentary refrains from exhaustive explanation, for this would crowd out the learner and undermine the very effort needed for the mental transformation" desired (Cleary, xxxviii).