Blue Cliff Record (Case 20) Lung Ya's Meaning ...

[Jundo]

Dear All,

From later this week, our "No Words Book Club" will turn to the Platform Sutra, guided by Rev. Kokuu (LINK)

So, we will put aside our game and play with the Koans of the Blue Cliff, for awhile. (The old threads will be kept in our archives, here: LINK)

Today, I leave you with a final Koan on whether the game has meaning or no meaning. Perhaps in dropping our hunt for constant meaning, we find that meaning is everywhere and always present.

Certainly, if you think that Zen and all of life is just "meaningless" ... then you really are missing the meaning of this Koan. That is just nihilism, which is never the point of Buddhism and Zen. I mean, we might miss the meaning for awhile, or be confused about the meaning in some ways ... but the true meaning is always present, whether missed or gotten.

Got my meaning?

Commentators that I have looked at who discuss the meaning of the CASE actually seem to disagree about the meaning of this Koan, and they interpret the meaning of the story differently. A fellow asks about the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West, from India to China. This question always really means, "What is the real meaning of Buddhism/Zen?" He hands over two items related to sitting Zazen, a Zafu cushion and a "Zenpan" stick that folks used to use (some still do) to put under the chin so that they could sleep sitting up ...
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He gets hit by the two teachers, and responds each time, "Hit me if you want, but I think there is no meaning."

Now, if he meant that "it is all meaningless," then I think those commentators would be right who think that, as the first VERSE says, this fellow "has no eyes," and is just "dead water," and that the "Zazen cushion and brace" is wasted on this guy, so he should "just give them to me (the meaning of "Mr. Lu" in the poem, with the poet referring to himself.) However, even the poet seems to have changed his mind a bit, so added a second VERSE which maybe means something like "the meaning is everywhere, bring it off the cushion" into the world. A poem about clouds and mountain trailing off in all directions is usually a Zen poetic reference to thoughts and things filling the world, yet coming together in wholeness. Thus, turning to the POINTER, if you are lost in thoughts, you are like someone crushed up against the things of this world as if crushed under mountains, but if one can be free of that, the mountains crumble and even space dissolves.

At least, that is the meaning that I find, and I don't think it meaningless.

Personally, I think that this "Zen has no meaning" is incredibly rich and profound with meaning. Why? It is the same as other Koans we have seen in this series, such as Case 17 where, when asked the very same question about Bodhidharma's coming, Hsiang Lin said, "Sitting for a long time becomes toilsome." All day long, we chase goals, demand that things be to our liking, demand "meaning" and entertainment from life. For a little time, sitting on the cushion, we put down the goals, demands, preferences and need for reward and meaning ...

... and the funny thing that happens is that, in sitting so, we can discover treasure and meaning EVERYWHERE!! It is the same as Bodhidharma's own words when he was asked about the meaning and value of it all by the Emperor, and the B-man responded, "Vast and void, no holiness" and "No merit" which really means that it is ALL HOLY and overflowing with merit.

QUESTIONS:
- In your life, do you have the power to put down the need for meaning and satisfaction, and by doing so, are able to find the natural meaning and inherent satisfaction that most clearly appears when we drop the hunt for it? Can you tell a story of a moment in your life when that happened (e.g., when I was sick last week, I felt miserable and the flu seems pretty meaningless but, when I could put down my demand that the situation be to my liking, suddenly the whole yucky day in bed seemed filled with meaning and peace.)

- In any case, we now put down the cases of the Blue Cliff for awhile. Let me know if you found meaning in the game we played each week, or was it just meaningless to you?

Here is a song by a Ukrainian singer, Carpetman, who (really) seems to be best known for singing while wrapped up from head to toe in carpet.　LINK ABOUT HIM
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He asks "What does it mean to you?" and whose opinion is right or wrong about who you are and what is "I am." One ends up lost in thoughts all night, asking "are we the same?" How did we get in this (Koan) game? Where you fooled by this? The Enso circle is endless, and your lying friend is "your ego." It makes hells and destroys them as well. How do you know if you are dreaming? So many answers hidden. No profit in freedom, slaves for the leader (so kill the Buddha!) ...

Carpetman asks, "what if there is no me, and there is no you?" Then the kingdom is empty and free! AH, TOO MANY WORDS!

Wake up, WAKEY WAKEY!

... DIGGITY BOOM!
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... or maybe I am just reading too much into the meaning where there is none?

Gassho, J
stlah

[Hosai]

Please excuse the farce of Jundo's Study of the Blue Cliff Record. This is why koan study should be left to the descendants of Linchi.
The lightness with which they have been treated here does not honor the hours (even years) of toilsome zazen that were spent on them.

I of course disagree about the meaning of koans. It's not that there is no meaning because, as Jundo says, that is nihilism… but neither is it a search for personal meaning, as this is mere existentialism.

There is a very important message for some in this koan and it has to do with the meditation brace. What kind of zazen is it that we do that requires a stick to hold us up? Who knew these existed (BTW some monks in Korea still use them). So is it okay to enjoy our mind? Is it okay to look for meaning there? For some it is much more interesting than endlessly chasing what's “out there”. For some, what's “out there” is no different than what's “in here”.

For some these koans are a mere game played online like a video game... for others it is life and death. Some sleep away their zazen while others self-immolate.

Screenshot_20250104-040628_copy_373x242.png

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Jundo]

Sounds, Matt, like you have the meditation brace jammed up where the sun don't shine.

Like the fellow who blew himself up, seems like lacking a sense of humor and good insight leads to a perfect waste. Question: Was the explosion out there or in there?

Gassho, Jundo
stlah

[Jundo]

PS - By the way, who the hell says this?

... it a search for personal meaning, as this is mere existentialism.

[Hosai]

Zen is not existentialism...

PHOTO REMOVED

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Jundo]

Zen is not existentialism ...

Who said that it is? It has elements that are, and some common points with a certain form of existentialism, but I would say that is only an aspect.

You having a bad night?

The fellow in the photo, by the way, did not burn himself to protest the Vietnam War, as some think. He was protesting what was perceived as discrimination in Vietnam at the time against the Buddhist Church by the Catholic Diem government. In a sense, I don't consider the fellow who did that much better than the 9-11 terrorists, or the fellow who blew himself up in front of Trump Tower. No, he did not crash a plane into a building, but did he have no consideration or empathy to the small children and other poor people who might have been passing on the streets and had to watch the violence he did?

That kind of suicide is a kind of violence, a perversion of Buddhist doctrine usually taken (like religious fanatics do) by twisting one section from the Lotus Sutra literally in which the Medicine Buddha is said to have offered his body to light the world ...

Having made this offering he arose from samadhi. He thought to himself, "Although by means of spiritual powers I have made this offering to the Buddha, it is not as good as offering my body." He then swallowed incense of many kinds chandana, kunduruka, turushka, prikka, aloeswood, and resin incense. He also drank the oil of champaka and other flowers for a full twelve hundred years. He smeared himself with fragrant oil, and in the presence of the Buddha Virtue Pure and Bright Like the Sun and Moon, he wrapped himself in heavenly jeweled robes and poured fragrant oil over himself. Then by means of spiritual penetration power and vows, he burned his own body. The light shone everywhere throughout worlds in number to the grains of sand in eighty kotis of Ganges Rivers.

Within them all, the Buddhas simultaneously praised him, saying, "Good indeed! Good indeed! Good man, this is true vigor. This is called a true Dharma offering to the Thus Come One. Offerings of flowers, incense, beads, burning incense, ground incense, paste incense, heavenly cloth, banners, canopies, ‘this shore’ chandana incense, and all such offerings of various kinds cannot come up to it. If one gave away one’s countries, cities, wives, and children, that also could not match it. Good man, this is called foremost giving. Among all gifts, it is the most honored and most supreme, because it is an offering of Dharma to the Thus Come Ones." Having uttered these words, they became silent.

His body burned for twelve hundred years, after which time it was consumed.

You okay, Matt? Seasonal affect?

Gassho, J
stlah

[Jundo]

As an aside, it is an interesting question: Does Zen have any common ground with existentialism. I have long thought yes, yet our way leaps far beyond.

The "yes" is a certain similarity of finding all meaning in "just this moment, this turn in life, this sadness or happiness or boredom or whatever is happening." This moment contains all time, yet is precisely this moment which (as Dogen says) is just itself, with its own before and after. Winter is just Winter, not the beginning of Spring. It has more connection to someone like Camus, who finds the positive and reaffirming in the struggle, than to the negativity and loss of Sartre, for example. Camus' Sysyphus takes on his silly rock pushing task and finds all the meaning in the world there. Heidegger spoke of letting the moment be the moment, whatever the content of life's moment is. Certainly, we face the great questions of life and death, sickness and aging. Camus said many things that resonate with Zen ...

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

...

“Of whom and of what in fact can I say ‘I know about that!’ This heart in me, I can experience it and I conclude that it exists. This world, I can touch it and I conclude again that it exists. All my knowledge stops there, and the rest is construction.

For if I try to grasp this self of which I am assured, if I try to define it and to sum it up, it is no more than a liquid that flows between my fingers. I can depict one by one all the faces that it can assume; all those given it, too, by this education, this origin, this boldness or these silences, this grandeur or this vileness. But one cannot add up faces. This same heart which is mine will ever remain for me undefinable.

Between the certainty that I have of my existence and the content that I strive to give to this assurance, the gap will never be filled. Always shall I be a stranger to myself. …Here, again, are trees and I know their roughness, water and I experience its savour. This scent of grass and of stars, night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes—how shall I deny this world whose power and forces I experience? Yet all the science of this earth will give me nothing that can assure me that this world is mine.”

But I am no expert on Camus, and he seems lost in thoughts and notions. Our Zen practice leaps far beyond existentialism or, better said, one finds one's true self as the moment, the trees, the flowing waters, the grass and stars, all time and timeless.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Chikyou]

I remember having to read Camus in high school. I thought it was the most dreadful, depressing piece of literature I had ever laid eyes on. I’m wondering now, if I should read it again, because now I might be able to appreciate it.

What is the meaning of the Patriarch coming from the west? An instant. This instant. The student didn’t understand what the monks were trying to say. But do I? I shall go hit myself with my zafu now. (Not literally! )

Gassho,
SatLah
Chikyō

[Kokuu]

Please excuse the farce of Jundo's Study of the Blue Cliff Record. This is why koan study should be left to the descendants of Linchi.
The lightness with which they have been treated here does not honor the hours (even years) of toilsome zazen that were spent on them.

It is definitely true that koans are used differently in Soto Zen and Rinzai but do not think that means that what Jundo is doing here is meaningless.

The sitting with koans method of Linji's lineage has much to offer and here we are not promoting the same kind of practice. However, giving people an introduction to the traditional koan literature seems worthwhile for its own sake, without pretending to be the same as koan introspection. Dogen himself riffs on many koans in Shobogenzo.

With respect to the question, I recently saw this quote from Joseph Campbell which I like:

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Meishin]

Someone died and her husband decided that life has no meaning and he has no purpose. Before she died, they wrangled constantly. Was that his purpose and was that life's meaning? How is it possible to point to meaning as something out there existing like a gaping mouth in space? Who is it who confers meaning? I have looked around my place, thinking it may have been lost in some crevice. When I get tired, I lay back and just pet my dog. And that's it.

I started this koan study late, but it has led to a re-examination of how I am conducting this life. Thank you. All.

Gassho
Meishin
stlah

[Hosai]

Sometimes you have to die for what you believe in. Sometimes your meaning amounts to a photo...

Zen has in the past been used (perverted or not) as a way to conquer one's fear of death.

What can I say, for whatever reason I felt Master Sargeant Livelsberger pain very strongly.

I'm sorry if I triggered anybody... I was very triggered and as somebody recovering from PTSD I sometimes get very angry and depressed...

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Jundo]

Sometimes you have to die for what you believe in. Sometimes your meaning amounts to a photo...

Zen has in the past been used (perverted or not) as a way to conquer one's fear of death.

What can I say, for whatever reason I felt Master Sargeant Livelsberger pain very strongly.

I'm sorry if I triggered anybody... I was very triggered and it's and as somebody recovering from PTSD I sometimes get very angry and depressed...

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

Zen is surely about life and death, facing each and leaping through into Yellow Springs (Hades). Some of the most powerful days of practice were, for example, when my daughter was a baby in the Emergency Ward, with a 50-50 chance to make it through the night, when I was in my cancer ward bed the night before surgery, when the cat got hit by a car ... all of that.

I still think suicidal self-immolation for any reason, but especially for political reasons, is foolish, and ultimately cruel to others and selfish. Sgt. Livelsberger left a small kid, and there were better ways for him to do and say what he needed to say. He could have lived and worked to helped countless others. Now, his act will be forgotten in a week.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Hosai]

Zen is surely about life and death, facing each and leaping through into Yellow Springs (Hades). Some of the most powerful days of practice were, for example, when my daughter was a baby in the Emergency Ward, with a 50-50 chance to make it through the night, when I was in my cancer ward bed the night before surgery, when the cat got hit by a car ... all of that.

I still think suicidal self-immolation for any reason, but especially for political reasons, is foolish, and ultimately cruel to others and selfish. Sgt. Livelsberger left a small kid, and there were better ways for him to and say what he needed to say. He could have lived and worked to helped countless others. Now, his act will be forgotten in a week.

Gassho, J
stlah

I think he did it for personal reasons... and the personal is political...

_/\_
sat/ah
matt

[Choujou]

QUESTIONS:
- In your life, do you have the power to put down the need for meaning and satisfaction, and by doing so, are able to find the natural meaning and inherent satisfaction that most clearly appears when we drop the hunt for it? Can you tell a story of a moment in your life when that happened (e.g., when I was sick last week, I felt miserable and the flu seems pretty meaningless but, when I could put down my demand that the situation be to my liking, suddenly the whole yucky day in bed seemed filled with meaning and peace.)

- In any case, we now put down the cases of the Blue Cliff for awhile. Let me know if you found meaning in the game we played each week, or was it just meaningless to you?

I had a profound paranormal experience years ago which was a big reason why I am here practicing Zen. ( long story that I won't go into) For many years I tried to find meaning in the experience itself, and have spent years exploring the paranormal world in search for answers, and that meaning. Shortly after the Rohatsu Sesshin, I had a sudden realization about that experience. I wasn't even thinking about it, and in fact had begun to question my involvement in my paranormal work and whether I wanted to continue it or not. Anyway, what hit me suddenly was the realization that I had spent years looking at the finger pointing to the moon. The paranormal experience I had was intense, yes. It was striking, yes. And it was the very thing that I would pay attention to, to get me to where I need to be, which was here at Treeleaf, practicing. Again, there is more to the story that would make this make more sense, but the point is that it was a big experience that I ended up attaching to, instead of following the path it had set me on. I spent all my time looking back rather than forward. I'm so glad to have corrected this.

Oh yes, I found great meaningless meaning in our study of the Koans! Thank you Roshi, I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Gassho,
Jay

sat/lah today

[Furyu]

I say "we", but these are just my musings, of course... I think we are basically wired to find patterns and create meaning out of them. We call the process of creating the meaning by many names - intuition, fate, godly intervention, good/bad luck, life experience, empirical/scientific/traditional knowledge, etc. That is the reality we create, our perspective on the universe. The meaning is in our heads, we often get attached to it, but it may or may not reflect how things really are. That is our conundrum. We have to accept the not knowing that is ultimately beneath the mental creations that help us function day to day. For me, seeing this is freeing. So, "Bodhidharma's coming to the west" is a bit of a strange question, how to answer it? a person could rationalize any kind of response, from the historical to the metaphysical, but utlimately, there is no solid meaning. If the question is supposed to ask about the nature of zen, then a no-answer might be "see clearly".

I enjoyed reading the first 20 cases. We probably only scratched the surface but still, I found that many koans crept into zazen (which is not zazen anymore...) and I ended up mulling over them in that space. Some did indeed convey a meaning that I thought profound and others still just baffle me - I think that is expected. Trying to get into the 'head space' of the masters who put down these cases is a bit like the turtle surfacing into the log with a whole on the ocean...

Ramine
Sat and lah