We move on to Case 2.
I cannot promise that the interpretations I suggest are, 100% guaranteed, the final and "correct" meaning of a Koan. I can only offer what seems the likely meaning based on my own understanding, and my research and exploration of what other commentators have offered. Even so (as today's Koan POINTER reminds) you cannot just intellectually take in somebody else's meaning, but ya really need to "feel it" yourself.
So, let's dive in here:
The POINTER, the big "intro," is trying to say something like, "This Wisdom is so big and boundless that even the universe seems small, even the sun and stars are swept in, even all the Zen masters with their shouts and sticks cannot express it, all the Buddha and Ancestors can't express the whole of it ... even words like "Buddha" don't capture it ... Superior people might get it beyond words, but newcomers just have to figure it out for themselves." Something like that.
The CASE plays on the opening words of the Xin Xin Ming, a cherished writing in Zen, that illumination is not hard if we "just avoid picking and choosing," give up having likes and dislikes, preferences. Then clarity comes. BUT (here is the twist) if you separate then "picking and choosing" (bad) from "clarity" (good) ... you are picking and choosing, and lack true clarity!
A real adept is so beyond "picking and choosing" that she does not mind picking and choosing or not picking and choosing ... or having "clarity" vs. "not having clarity" ... and this is the True Clarity.
Thus, a real adept can find Clarity right in this sometimes muddled world which daily requires us to have preferences, likes and dislikes, and to make choices (big and small, sometimes really hard ones.) By not seeking "clarity," by not trying to "abide in clarity," there is Real Clarity.
Chao Chou, when asked about how he does the above, responds something like, "I don't know (I just do it) ... I just bow and withdraw." This means something like, "you just know you are in this Real Clarity when you are ... and keep moving on down life's highway." It also resonates Bodhidharma's "I don't know" which is the ultimate, beyond separation, which nonetheless is this world of separation and choices to make. Both are not the ordinary "I don't know" of simple ignorance. Chao Chou says that we don't "abide within clarity," which may mean something like one cannot stand still and frozen in clarity, like a sailor frozen in the ice as if "stuck in glue" (as the COMMENTARY says), but must keep moving forward like a sailor meeting wave after wave, choice after choice, like and dislike after like and dislike. If you can do this, one is truly Clear and Beyond Preferences. People in Zazen sometimes feel a bit of peace and clarity and try to stay there, but that is not the real living Zazen of meeting wave after wave.
The last paragraph of the COMMENTARY may mean something like, "Chao Chou could have answered the monk talking about things like "transcending relative and absolute, merging subject and object, or just giving a shout' ... and although it looks like he just said, "I don't know" ... he actually gave a darn good response of "ya just do it ... don't abide." I feel that response actually includes all the others just fine.
The VERSE says that "in one there is all diversity, in all diversity (two, many) there is no duality." Clarity, tranquility, peace, timeless wholeness is found right in this world of separate things, difficulties, choices, which are also non-dual (mountains that are not mountains ... swelling waves and sailing boats, the rising and sinking sun and passing time, etc.) That is why the verse ends with traditional Zen symbols of seemingly frozen and lifeless things that are actually also life, growth, change: A skull with clear eyes, dead tree home to a living dragon. When one finds the wholeness right in the chaos of this world, one is truly Clear and free of Picking and Choosing. Sounds "difficult" but, as the Xin Xin Mind says, "The way is not difficult ... " when "ya just do it ... don't abide."
QUESTIONS FOR YOU (Don't look at others' responses before responding): I am hoping for short answers. Not more than a short sentence or, even better, a phrase or two for each question. These are Koans, so pretty short and right to the point please.
1 - Describe very briefly something you like (and maybe totally need to like in life ... like water and breathing!) or need to dislike (e.g., poison) ... and how one can also be free of "likes and dislikes" about it even while doing so.
2 - Describe a cloudy moment of life, one that does not feel very "nice and clear" at all ... and how Clarity comes from not preferring it to be clear.
3- Do you like this Koan?
Many versions of the following song, I picked one that I prefer ... made by UK medical workers during the Covid lockdown (which none of us liked or preferred) ... I bet that some of them had to make hard care choices each day ...
.
.
Gassho, J
stlah
I cannot promise that the interpretations I suggest are, 100% guaranteed, the final and "correct" meaning of a Koan. I can only offer what seems the likely meaning based on my own understanding, and my research and exploration of what other commentators have offered. Even so (as today's Koan POINTER reminds) you cannot just intellectually take in somebody else's meaning, but ya really need to "feel it" yourself.
So, let's dive in here:
The POINTER, the big "intro," is trying to say something like, "This Wisdom is so big and boundless that even the universe seems small, even the sun and stars are swept in, even all the Zen masters with their shouts and sticks cannot express it, all the Buddha and Ancestors can't express the whole of it ... even words like "Buddha" don't capture it ... Superior people might get it beyond words, but newcomers just have to figure it out for themselves." Something like that.
The CASE plays on the opening words of the Xin Xin Ming, a cherished writing in Zen, that illumination is not hard if we "just avoid picking and choosing," give up having likes and dislikes, preferences. Then clarity comes. BUT (here is the twist) if you separate then "picking and choosing" (bad) from "clarity" (good) ... you are picking and choosing, and lack true clarity!
A real adept is so beyond "picking and choosing" that she does not mind picking and choosing or not picking and choosing ... or having "clarity" vs. "not having clarity" ... and this is the True Clarity.
Thus, a real adept can find Clarity right in this sometimes muddled world which daily requires us to have preferences, likes and dislikes, and to make choices (big and small, sometimes really hard ones.) By not seeking "clarity," by not trying to "abide in clarity," there is Real Clarity.Chao Chou, when asked about how he does the above, responds something like, "I don't know (I just do it) ... I just bow and withdraw." This means something like, "you just know you are in this Real Clarity when you are ... and keep moving on down life's highway." It also resonates Bodhidharma's "I don't know" which is the ultimate, beyond separation, which nonetheless is this world of separation and choices to make. Both are not the ordinary "I don't know" of simple ignorance. Chao Chou says that we don't "abide within clarity," which may mean something like one cannot stand still and frozen in clarity, like a sailor frozen in the ice as if "stuck in glue" (as the COMMENTARY says), but must keep moving forward like a sailor meeting wave after wave, choice after choice, like and dislike after like and dislike. If you can do this, one is truly Clear and Beyond Preferences. People in Zazen sometimes feel a bit of peace and clarity and try to stay there, but that is not the real living Zazen of meeting wave after wave.
The last paragraph of the COMMENTARY may mean something like, "Chao Chou could have answered the monk talking about things like "transcending relative and absolute, merging subject and object, or just giving a shout' ... and although it looks like he just said, "I don't know" ... he actually gave a darn good response of "ya just do it ... don't abide." I feel that response actually includes all the others just fine.
The VERSE says that "in one there is all diversity, in all diversity (two, many) there is no duality." Clarity, tranquility, peace, timeless wholeness is found right in this world of separate things, difficulties, choices, which are also non-dual (mountains that are not mountains ... swelling waves and sailing boats, the rising and sinking sun and passing time, etc.) That is why the verse ends with traditional Zen symbols of seemingly frozen and lifeless things that are actually also life, growth, change: A skull with clear eyes, dead tree home to a living dragon. When one finds the wholeness right in the chaos of this world, one is truly Clear and free of Picking and Choosing. Sounds "difficult" but, as the Xin Xin Mind says, "The way is not difficult ... " when "ya just do it ... don't abide."
QUESTIONS FOR YOU (Don't look at others' responses before responding): I am hoping for short answers. Not more than a short sentence or, even better, a phrase or two for each question. These are Koans, so pretty short and right to the point please.
1 - Describe very briefly something you like (and maybe totally need to like in life ... like water and breathing!) or need to dislike (e.g., poison) ... and how one can also be free of "likes and dislikes" about it even while doing so.
2 - Describe a cloudy moment of life, one that does not feel very "nice and clear" at all ... and how Clarity comes from not preferring it to be clear.
3- Do you like this Koan?
Many versions of the following song, I picked one that I prefer ... made by UK medical workers during the Covid lockdown (which none of us liked or preferred) ... I bet that some of them had to make hard care choices each day ...
.
.
Gassho, J
stlah
Comment