Blue Cliff Record (Case 5) Hsueh Feng's Grain of Rice

[Jundo]

Hello Fellow Grains,

The POINTER talks about "killing a man," but not literally of course. It means killing the ignorance of a little "self," bringing Buddha to life on the spot. The Zen fellow must bring illumination and function (i.e., wisdom and really putting it into action in this life) together. The Zen teacher is "wrapping up and opening out, " which means something like "she knows when to be silent and when to talk, when to stand still and when to act out" in order to teach. "Principal and phenomena are not two ... he practices in both the provisional and the real" means that he brings Emptiness/the Absolute and this messy world together as one. "Letting go of the primary, he sets up the secondary meaning" probably means something like "even though the actual thing is beyond expression, he tries to say and do something, however, imperfect, to get the point across. It leads to all kinds of misunderstandings (faults and errors), but if he did not, beginning and less advanced students would not understand at all, so he needs to explain as best he can." However, the "clear eyed" who have transcended life and death (as if in the mouth of a tiger) understand whatever the case.

Then the CASE, which is fairly straight forward (although, as always, this is not to be understood just intellectually, but viscerally, truly experienced and known in the bones.) It happens to be very much related to the little (BIG) talk I offered at Zazen today, BIG is small, small is BIG, so maybe have a listen (at 59:25 here: LINK) It is something like Blake's "To see a world in a grain of sand."

For the Zen fellow, Everything, the tiniest thing, the most mundane things, fully contains ... nay, fully IS ... everything, every other thing, the whole world, the universe, all time and space and then some.

If you throw it down like Hsueh Feng (Seppo) says, the grain vanishes from sight into Emptiness ... but truly, it is everywhere the eyes can see. Everybody cannot fail to see it, though they may be missing it, looking for it here and there beating their drums, as if lost inside a dark bucket of lacquer (a metaphor usually meaning to be lost in ignorance.)

The COMMENTARY has reference to other Koany stories in praise of Hsueh Feng/Seppo which I will not dive into, except to note the ones where the Universe, the Absolute, the Teaching is equated with the most mundane things and object: Dirt, the teacher's staff, defecation, rice grit. Where and what is it not?

In the VERSE, "Ox head disappears, horse head emerges" is probably a Chinese saying for "waves come and go on the sea," i.e., the events and things of this world happen, coming and going. "The mirror ... has no dust" refers to a famous saying by the 6th Ancestor, meaning the dusty obstructions of this world are clear. Don't you see? All the "hundred flowers" of this world (all the things of this world) show it right before your eyes, and are you.

QUESTION:

- If the whole world is this grain of sand or rice in your hand, but the grain is a thing in the world, where are you located? Where is Hsueh Feng right now? (Hint: Whatever you say may be like the "wild fox interpretation" mentioned in the COMMENTARY.)
.

One grain of sand,
One grain of sand, one grain of sand.
One grain of sand,
One grain of sand, one grain of sand.

One grain of sand,
One drop of water in the sea.
One grain of sand,
One little you, one little me.

One grain of sand,
One little star up in the blue.
One grain of sand,
One little me, one little you.

One grain of sand,
One leaf of grass--upon a plain.
One grain of sand,
We come and go again and again, again.

One grain of sand
One grain of sand on an endless shore
One grain of sand
One little life who’d ask for more

One grain of sand
One drop of water in the sea
One grain of sand
One little you one little me

One grain of sand
One grain of sand is all my joy
One grain of sand
One little girl one little boy

One grain of sand
One leaf of grass upon a plain
One grain of sand
We come and go again and again and again

One grain of sand
One little snowflake lost in a swirling storm
One grain of sand
I’ll hold you close and keep you warm

The sun will rise
The sun will rise and then go down
The sun will rise
One little world go round and round and round

One grain of sand
One grain of sand is all my own
One grain of sand
One grain of sand is home sweet home

Gassho, J
stlah

-

[Onsho]

Im located with a box and its lid. Where two arrow points touch in mid air.

Gassho
Onsho
SatLah

[Matt Johnson]

漆桶の予兆 (Shittō no Yochō)

Sitting too tired to drive today
San Jose is so far away.
Windows washing, sent metta they say
We secretly love a rainy day
Garlicoins and zoodles for Oodles
Crying rottweiler-half french poodles
Maybe dead or maybe more
Iassua to Salvador
Foucault n'a jamais quitter La Parse
Estes method in spiritual dark
A Shukman sense of beat poetry
On the road to Sei-rin-ji
Many eyes and many hands
As small and as big as a grain of sand

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Chikyou]

Mu.

Gassho,
SatLah
Chikyō

[Jundo]

Mu.

Gassho,
SatLah
Chikyō

Oh, no no no. You can't get away with "Mu" around here.

Try again.

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[BikeZen]

Moo

I know Jundo ... "try again".

Nowhere and everywhere.

Gassho,
Bill

Sat/Lah

[Paco]

I am there with the whole world, a grain of rice, in my hand. I look at the grain closely, I see I am there with the whole world, a grain of rice, in my hand. That me looks closer at the grain in his hand, I am there with the whole world, a grain a rice, in my hand. The same repeats with Hsueh Feng. The same repeats with all things in all places. Intellectually this reminds me of a scientific idea, the Mandelbrot set. Look closely, look from far away, everything, it's entirety, is always there.

Gassho,
Paco
sat and lent a hand

[Jundo]

I am there with the whole world, a grain of rice, in my hand. I look at the grain closely, I see I am there with the whole world, a grain of rice, in my hand. That me looks closer at the grain in his hand, I am there with the whole world, a grain a rice, in my hand. The same repeats with Hsueh Feng. The same repeats with all things in all places. Intellectually this reminds me of a scientific idea, the Mandelbrot set. Look closely, look from far away, everything, it's entirety, is always there.

Gassho,
Paco
sat and lent a hand

I dig this.

[Paco]

I dig this.

Thank you, Jundo.

Gassho,
Paco
Sat/Lah

[ZenJay]

QUESTION:

- If the whole world is this grain of sand or rice in your hand, but the grain is a thing in the world, where are you located? Where is Hsueh Feng right now? (Hint: Whatever you say may be like the "wild fox interpretation" mentioned in the COMMENTARY.)

Who?

I am right in my hand, I am my hand, I am the sun that shines upon the grain, I am the bird that comes a picks the grain from the hand…
The rice is me ricing, I am the rice Jaying…the bird is the rice birding, the bird is me birding…
All dharmas contain all dharmas. All dharmas are Buddha, no matter where you look, Hsueh Feng is there smiling.

Gassho,
Jay

Sat/lah today

[Chikyou]

Oh, no no no. You can't get away with "Mu" around here.

Try again.

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

When I was growing up, there was one of those gaudy gold framed mirrored medicine cabinets in the bathroom - there were three hinged panels that opened. If you opened two of them, they faced each other and you could see the reflection of one mirror in the other, reflecting the reflection of the mirror, back and forth like that, smaller and smaller, farther away and farther away until it disappeared entirely. I would play with this, changing the angle until I could see, I thought to infinity. Somehow I knew it would go on forever in concept, even though there was a limit to what my eyes could see in two bathroom mirrors.

And yet, though infinitely decreasing, farther and farther away, it's all RIGHT HERE on the two dimensional surface of the glass.

Gassho,
SatLah
Chikyō

[Anthony]

QUESTION:

- If the whole world is this grain of sand or rice in your hand, but the grain is a thing in the world, where are you located? Where is Hsueh Feng right now? (Hint: Whatever you say may be like the "wild fox interpretation" mentioned in the COMMENTARY.)

I am nowhere looking at myself within the world existing in my own hand.

gassho,
Anthony
satlah

[Jundo]

I just want to say that, as a group, I am really digging the responses. I think you each really see something of the point of this Koan.

Of course, like I always say, the point is not just to understand these things intellectually, but really to start to see this wisdom and "get a feel" for it in the bones. But I think you each have some sense of the Koan.

Lovely.

Gassho, Jundo

[Bion]

- If the whole world is this grain of sand or rice in your hand, but the grain is a thing in the world, where are you located? Where is Hsueh Feng right now?

In every direction the grain of rice holds the grain of rice and Hsueh Feng appears and vanishes freely. Sometimes my head disappears and Hsueh Feng's emerges, sometimes both our heads have the same face.

Gassho
sat lah

[Jundo]

- If the whole world is this grain of sand or rice in your hand, but the grain is a thing in the world, where are you located? Where is Hsueh Feng right now?

In every direction the grain of rice holds the grain of rice and Hsueh Feng appears and vanishes freely. Sometimes my head disappears and Hsueh Feng's emerges, sometimes both our heads have the same face.

Gassho
sat lah

Yes. Nice, traditional response.