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    BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 81

    Let us now return for some time to the Book of Equanimity ... this time, Case 81 - Gensha Comes to the Province

    Commentators seem all over the place on this hard case, but I feel that it is about time, the passing and presence of time ...

    The Koan and Shishin's comments can be found here ...

    https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=...ifests&f=false

    and

    https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=...ssness&f=false

    As with so many of the Koans, the intimacy of the "relative" and "absolute" is at work too.

    I believe that the central message of the Koan is that yesterday's happening (in this case, a celebration, but it could be a sad childhood or other tragedy, or just any moment of the past) is still present right here and now (shown by lifting the robe in a "here it is" gesture) even though now gone. Gensha's response that "there is no relation between them at all" means that it is also not the case that the past is still present. In other words, the past is just the past, and the present is just the present, and never the two shall meet. However, the past is still present too, as intimately as the robe one wears.

    I read the Preface as saying something like, when the mind moves, light and shadow, past and present and all division appears. With awareness, each separate moment and separate thing is seen as like grains in a cloud of dust floating through clear space. Raised up and known from one angle, there is just the open clarity free of dust. From another angle, there are all the separate things intimately present in each other. All are true ways of seeing the identity, yet lack of identity, of all things and moments, including yesterday and now.

    The Appreciatory Verse continues this dance of the absolute and relative. The boat (a moving thing) vanishes in the dark (the absolute). A thrust pole (also a thing that moves) is in the clear water (the absolute). Dragons and fish (living things like us) do not realize that the clear water (the absolute) makes their lives possible. The swirling stick makes waves and stirs up dust, but the wise dragon and fish are unimpeded. The sticks and grass, turtles and carp are also moving things that convey the same message.

    The absolute and relative, like Gensha and Shoto, meet together like a box and lid, or two arrows touching in mid-air (famous phrases from the Sandokai which we chant, "The Identity of Relative and Absolute").

    It is a tricky Koan.

    Question: In your life, can you see how moments of the past are totally gone, yet fully present right now too?

    Gassho, Jundo

    STLah
    Last edited by Jundo; 05-21-2019 at 07:37 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

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