This story is something about Buddhism again, in which I talk about the wording of “拈華微笑nengemishō”. It means a heart-to-heart communication in which we don’t need any words to communicate well with someone…There is another word which has a similar meaning which is “以心伝心 ishindenshin” which means having a tacit understanding.
Among adherents of Zen, the origin of Zen Buddhism is ascribed to a story, known in English as the Flower Sermon, in which Śākyamuni (Gautama) initiated the truth (wisdom) to the disciple Mahākāśyapa. In the story, Śākyamuni gives a wordless sermon to his disciples by holding up and twisting a flower. No one in the audience understands the Flower Sermon except Mahākāśyapa who smiles. 拈花微笑 literally means of "picking up flower, subtle smile".
Mahākāśyapa was only a person who understood the truth among the many disciples. Any words were not needed. I think he was a genius because he got that inspiration just by looking at the twisted flower. As for the fact that the esoteric knowledge is initiated only to the competent disciple, this can happen all the time. Whatever the truth is, the word generally is understood like the above mentioned.
However someone told me another story which was different. According to him, the truth was that Śākyamuni (Gautama) was actually enlightened (understood the truth) by his disciple Mahākāśyapa at that time. So, Śākyamuni communicated with Mahākāśyapa by twisting the flower to tell him that he understood it. When Mahākāśyapa looked at it, he smiled at Śākyamuni with his thought of “Śākyamuni, you’ve finally got it”
As for this disciple Mahākāśyapa, who was one of the ten principal disciples of Shakyamuni, he was paid special attention to by Shakyamuni according to an old episode. Also it was said that he played an important role at the funeral for Shakyamuni and after Śākyamuni’s death he got an important position in the religious community. Despite all these facts, there aren’t many of his life stories in detail at all. Also about the truth of how Mahākāśyapa became Śākyamuni’s disciple, it is still unknown.
Most of the stories which were passed on to modern days are focused on the side of Śākyamuni because his achievement was incomparable. But when I heard this story, I thought that it was interesting to know and it could be true as Mahākāśyapa was a mysterious person… Śākyamuni is historically such a great person. He is too great to be suspicious of but didn’t you think “He isn’t enlightened yet, has he?” when hearing the latter story?
Mahākāśyapa may have saved Śākyamuni’s face at that time as there were many other disciples in front of him. The enlighten ones don’t care about the order of who achieved it first. But in the modern days, the order is important, including the matter about a patent though…
The bottom line is that I wanted to suggest that there is nothing to be absolute in this world, so it’s possible to throw doubt on anything even if it’s a story that you hear from a great person or anyone who you trust. Also sometimes it’s good to view the things from different angles, not always from one angle. That’s it!
