3/11 TRANSMISSION of the LIGHT: to Yaoshan

Hi,

While the lights are on and before we flee the coming nuclear cloud :| I would offer a perspective on this week's reading, in theme much as last week's readings on Master Shitou.

Many of the Koan also are about the "relative" and the "absolute" ... which are not the same, but quite the same ... as intimate as intimate can be. Most folks in the world are lost in a "deluded" world of the relative. Half baked "zen masters" get swept up in the absolute beyond names/divisions/judgments. But, when each is seen as truly the other ... ONE GREAT DANCING ... nothing in this universe is left out, and the "absolute" takes form ... YOUR FORM (mine too) ... and walks talks shits and comes to life.

So, for example, the first dialogue (about the "12 Part Teachings") is something like whether one should study Buddhist doctrine, Sutras and such ... or burn them all and just get "instantly enlightened" by sitting Zazen. The Master responds something like "you really need both but, more than that, to transcend the whole question and experience the answer ... where they are not two (one beyond one)."

Same for the next dialogues: There is that (as the Heart Sutra sings) beyond "eye, ear, nose etc." ... and that blinks when you blink your eyes, scratches its nose when I scratch my nose ... so, again, "both" but more-so, intimate beyond intimate (not two).

See things from only one way or the other, and one is still partly blinded.

Even when Yaoshan felt so absolute "like a snake free of its skin" ... he still has work to do, to bring it back down to earth, set up a place on some mountain somewhere and teach.

This section also has one of the truly amazing Koan on "goalless Just Sitting" ... Sitting Zazen, "I am doing nothing at all ... [but] if I was sitting idly, I would then be doing something!" :shock: As I sometimes say, our way of sitting is sitting as a totally Whole and Complete Action ... but that does not mean we fall into complacency on the cushion. We sit "with the Mudra" perfectly round ... not twiddling our thumbs.

Anyway, THIS PERVADES ALL ACTIVITIES, NOTHING IS LEFT OUT ... including, I am sad to say, being swept up or fleeing earthquakes, tidal waves and even NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS! :cry:

Gassho, J

:D
:D :D
:D :D :D
:D :D :D :D

So glad to se you keep the usual schedule and continue the book club.

I'm also reading these days "realising the genjokoan" and how it is the ten thousand things that bear enlightment and while reading about Daoying I found this short dialogue very inspring:
A monk asked zen master Yunju Daoying: "what is the one Dharma?"
Yunju said: what are the one thousand dharmas?
The monk said: "I'm no sure how to comprehend this"?
Yunju said: "The one dharma is your own mind. THe then thousand dharmas are your fundamental nature. Are they one thing or two?"
The monk bowed

And that's an appropiate response to the physical koans that nature gives us, realising that tsunamis, earthquakes and nuclear parts are just the result of an entangled web of beings that bring our own nature. We bow at it.

At the same time, though hoping that the the ten thousand things will collaborate now in North Japan to ease the suffering, so a big bow to the doctors, nurses, engineers, construction workers and nuclear physicists that are putting all their entagled natures to work for a common cause

Gassho

Rimon

Hmm...
Is Jundo our Master Mazu?
Is Taigu our Master Shitou?
Are we students mosquitos trying to bite an iron ox?
What are you going to do? Hmm?

As a teacher (and student), there is much to relate to here. Sometimes you have to be stern with students, sometimes more nurturing. But always it goes like this: Here is the information, now what are you going to do? Ultimately, the student needs to DO something with all that information, to BEcome it and therefore act in accordance with whatever that information is conveying. For Yaoshan it was to teach. I have a quote on my office door, where I am not at the moment, that says something like the whole point of learning stuff is to then go teach it, because otherwise it's just incomplete knowledge. Not everyone has to teach, of course, but everyone IS a teacher based on information they have spent a lifetime acquiring. So, what else are you going to do?

"A mosquito trying to bite a iron ox." Yes, that is the way I feel. Even though, "Dharma gates are limitless" and "The ten thousand things bear the enlightenment". I don't want to pretend that I know anything. What am I gonna do now? Shouldn't I actually start unlearning?!

Hi yas
Nothing to add here, Beautifully put by Jundo.
Seemingly opposing, masters one "soft" one "tough" both are all of the above. two seemingly different masters displaying the dance to the student - time for him to stop asking how, reading the steps and join in. The hard one giving directions the soft one letting it sink in and together as one they confirm the transmission of the light to Master Yaoshan.

Gassho
Shoehi

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jundo

Half baked "zen masters" get swept up in the absolute beyond names/divisions/judgments.

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Nice! There's more than a few of those!

This reading was really a treat....one of my favorite readings in the book club has been one on the Sandokai. For those of you who were not around Treeleaf at the time you may wish to pick up..."Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai " taken from talks by Shunryu Suzuki. I'm sure the discussions are still up on Treeleaf and Norman Fischer has some great podcasts on this book.

But back to Jundo's comment, in the Sandokai it states, "To encounter the absolute is still not enlightenment" In our reading we learn the hossu raised high in stillness is not the full story....the hossu also strikes and transforms.....love this! (opps this belongs with the previous reading....sorry...in my excitement I somehow threw this hossu quote in...just noticed it)

Gassho,
Jisen/BrianW

"A mosquito trying to bite a iron ox."

I'm sure I read a reply to this that went something like.... but where can it (the mosquito) alight?
Even so ... how can anything disturb the dharma of a true master?
Even if Mt Meru should disappear in front of their eyes!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jundo

Hi,

While the lights are on and before we flee the coming nuclear cloud :| I would offer a perspective on this week's reading, in theme much as last week's readings on Master Shitou.

Many of the Koan also are about the "relative" and the "absolute" ... which are not the same, but quite the same ... as intimate as intimate can be. Most folks in the world are lost in a "deluded" world of the relative. Half baked "zen masters" get swept up in the absolute beyond names/divisions/judgments. But, when each is seen as truly the other ... ONE GREAT DANCING ... nothing in this universe is left out, and the "absolute" takes form ... YOUR FORM (mine too) ... and walks talks shits and comes to life.

So, for example, the first dialogue (about the "12 Part Teachings") is something like whether one should study Buddhist doctrine, Sutras and such ... or burn them all and just get "instantly enlightened" by sitting Zazen. The Master responds something like "you really need both but, more than that, to transcend the whole question and experience the answer ... where they are not two (one beyond one)."

Same for the next dialogues: There is that (as the Heart Sutra sings) beyond "eye, ear, nose etc." ... and that blinks when you blink your eyes, scratches its nose when I scratch my nose ... so, again, "both" but more-so, intimate beyond intimate (not two).

Quote:

---

See things from only one way or the other, and one is still partly blinded.

---

Even when Yaoshan felt so absolute "like a snake free of its skin" ... he still has work to do, to bring it back down to earth, set up a place on some mountain somewhere and teach.

This section also has one of the truly amazing Koan on "goalless Just Sitting" ... Sitting Zazen, "I am doing nothing at all ... [but] if I was sitting idly, I would then be doing something!" :shock: As I sometimes say, our way of sitting is sitting as a totally Whole and Complete Action ... but that does not mean we fall into complacency on the cushion. We sit "with the Mudra" perfectly round ... not twiddling our thumbs.

Anyway, THIS PERVADES ALL ACTIVITIES, NOTHING IS LEFT OUT ... including, I am sad to say, being swept up or fleeing earthquakes, tidal waves and even NUCLEAR MELTDOWNS! :cry:

Gassho, J

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Gassho, Shogen