How To Cook Your Life : from the Zen kitchen to Enlightenment.

[Jundo]

Lovely, Kokuu.

Kokuu said what I wanted to say, but clearer.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

By the way, I used "eccentric" for the late Kobun Chino. I think that was too strong. Maybe "creative" or "inventive" would be better adjectives. He famously translated the Gatha of the Heart Sutra, which is more often rendered as something like this:

Gate! Gate! (Gone, Gone)
Paragate! (Gone Beyond)
Parasamgate! (Gone Fully Beyond)
Bodhi! Svaha! * (Awakening, Rejoice)

as ...

Falling apart, falling apart.
Everything is falling apart.
Everything is always falling apart.
Nothing to do.



Here is a wonderful essay about him by David Chadwick, who is Suzuki Roshi's biographer ...

http://www.cuke.com/dchad-writ/kobun-great-friend.htm

Gassho, J

STLah

[Inshin]

By the way, I used "eccentric" for the late Kobun Chino. I think that was too strong. Maybe "creative" or "inventive" would be better adjectives. He famously translated the Gatha of the Heart Sutra, which is more often rendered as something like this:

Gate! Gate! (Gone, Gone)
Paragate! (Gone Beyond)
Parasamgate! (Gone Fully Beyond)
Bodhi! Svaha! * (Awakening, Rejoice)

as ...

Falling apart, falling apart.
Everything is falling apart.
Everything is always falling apart.
Nothing to do.



Here is a wonderful essay about him by David Chadwick, who is Suzuki Roshi's biographer ...

http://www.cuke.com/dchad-writ/kobun-great-friend.htm

Gassho, J

STLah

I wondered. From the very little of his writings I read, he reminded me a bit of you

"Sitting on your cushion is not relaxation, it is the result of all your knowledge. Every experience you have come through sits there each time. It is very serious. Otherwise, you sit because it feels good, and you are comfortable, and once in a while you feel an ecstatic sensation in your body. You feel calmness, stillness, clarity, and forget there are hungry people on this earth. You forget there are lots of diseases which are killing people. If you do not observe that in your sitting, you are just escaping into your desire. It happens if you mistake or limit the focus of your sitting practice.

Sitting shikan taza is the place itself, and things. The dynamics of all Buddhas are in it. When you sit, the cushion sits with you. If you wear glasses, the glasses sit with you. Clothing sits with you. House sits with you. People who are moving around outside all sit with you. They don't take the sitting posture!"

http://www.kobun.jikoji.org/shikantaza.php

Gassho
Sat

[Jundo]

I wondered. From the very little of his writings I read, he reminded me a bit of you

Yes, I must admit to being a bit "eccentric" myself, as are 99.9% of western Buddhist teachers I know, and perhaps western convert Buddhists in general ... one of the character traits leading us to be western convert Buddhists!

It is true!

The late great Kobun Chino's writings are pretty wild sometimes, though, that is for sure.

Gassho, J

STLah