Grass Hut - 31 - "Meeting Our Teachers"

[FaithMoon]

The writers of the article, Joan Sutherland, Bodjin Kjolhede and Judy Roitman, are all from Koan Introspection Zazen traditions, so their approach and handling of the Koans would tend to be a bit different (just the same but sometimes very different) from the handling in the Soto traditions. So, much there in the article that is not quite how we would approach and dance with the Koans.

I look forward to learning more about this approach!

I was not a fan of the Three Pillars of Zen approach to koans (Yasutani?), so that is why I was excited when I first read Tarrant's Bring Me the Rhinoceros, which seems to be a fresh, modern day, artistic dive into the koans, without watering them down. The article I linked above may not illustrate just how different Sutherland's approach is, but her book and other materials are available at her website. Maybe this piece by Tarrant gives a taste of how they have departed from traditional forms of koan study http://tarrantworks.com/2013/03/01/e...e-do-together/ .

Faith-Moon
sat today

[Jika]

I found the "Book of Equanimity" really too much, like when my friend asked me to correct his diploma work on history and I had never heard of all these events. That, only in a secret language additionally.

But hitting our head on a wall shakes things, and some may fall in the right place, so why not.

I feel that this chapter of the Grass Hut is a chapter of encouragement:
Learn to know each other with the openness you would give a relative or close friend.
Be aware that someone who has wonderful traits of character may also have peculiar ones.

And be thankful for those where you can really be fully yourself, and whom you can accept as themselves, without hiding.

I appreciate the quote of Dogen treating koans. Only someone very experienced could do so, but it shows that nothing has one side only.
The scriptures are not either saint or flawed. They simply are.

Gassho,
Danny
#sattoday

[MyoHo]

If I may add one title to the list of books menioned here, "The Cave of Tigers" ( I forgot the name of the writer sorry) is also a usefull and interesting read. Intetesting because it gives a chance to compare answers and reactions during dokusan. The answer or insight to a koan is often not single or absolute, it seems. There often are no absolute and defenite 1 +1 = 2 answers. It depends on who and how someone answers or talks. It was very intetesting to see how that works.

Also, I think what Jundo said about age old slang and a thousand year old "oneliners" is very important. It sure helps me to keep that in mind during koan study. What would one of the great ancestors have answered when asked " Show me Mu at Grand Central (train)station!" Facinating.

Oh well, working and discussing these curious questions together as a Sangha, in the endless end, maybe the greatest reward after all.

Gassho

Peter





Maybe that is also the reason why koans often seem so complicated and well... stupid at times? Observing ourselves and investigating this confusion or even the wish itself to give an answer while frustrated and confused, just may be of the same value as giving a great answer or explanation.


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[Myosha]

Hello,

Do you find that Zen Practice and Buddhist Teachings take on different facets of meaning or import for you on different days? Any examples?

Teachings are not teachings apart from us; teachings are us.

Do the old Koan stories resonate with you or leave you cold and confused?

Koans are useful for checking the practice.


Gassho
Myosha sat today

[Shinzan]

Very interesting thread, everyone. Both the Song of the Grass Hut and koans have a similar effect on me. After hanging out with them for several years, they just keep revealing more and more layers of meaning. I can correlate more and more meanings to my life experience. In this way, they are kind of like a mirror, showing me where I'm stuck or confused or blind. Their mysteriousness is like a goad: "What state of mind would I be in to say this saying as my deepest truth?" Setting aside all the old cultural encrustations, what's really going on here? And by good fortune, I am still clueless about many of these old teacher's sayings, poems etc. Plenty more ancient teachers to meet........

_/st\_ Shinzan

[GregJanL]

It depends honestly, Koans might seem completely nonsensical without background on buddhism, this one always eluded me when I thought that you can read koans with no background, some you can I guess but others leave out context.

This one deals with letting go of a pail of water that broke after a long time of trying to save it and there was no accompanying extensive frustration at the situation. The student Chiyono had his/her first experience in letting go after a lot of lack of progress in letting go through meditation in the form of this bucket breaking that they apparently responded to with equanimity and no "second arrow" hitting to compound the problem with the frustration. It's as if in that moment they were fully present in the moment and had enough actual insight into impermanence to not expect less but for the bucket to give at some point, it did, and a glimpse of freedom from clinging and wrong perception of permanence was displayed. It's my understanding of this koan at least that would not be there without my own practice, just a strange story with no context making it "mystical".

No Water, No Moon
When the nun Chiyono studied Zen under Bukko of Engaku she was unable to attain the fruits of meditation for a long time.
At last one moonlit night she was carrying water in an old pail bound with bamboo. The bamboo broke and the bottom fell out of the pail, and at that moment Chiyono was set free!
In commemoration, she wrote a poem:
In this way and that I tried to save the old pail
Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about
to break
Until at last the bottom fell out.
No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!

[AlanLa]

One of the things I love most about Zen is how we meet the teachings and personalize them and argue them and it's all okay. At the end of the chapter Connelly writes how this means using the teachings to be free: No more water in the pail / No more moon in the water. The opposite of that can be found in stuff like a FaceBook post I just read that blamed Hurricane Patricia on all the horrors going on in the world. That sort of rigid, fatalistic teaching does not engage me or meet me because it is not useful to me. Instead, it makes me want to run away or shrink instead of grow and be involved. So, yeah, I love the koans and look forward to getting back to them, although this grass hut has been a very nice rest area along that journey.

Okay, what were the questions?

Do the old Koan stories resonate with you or leave you cold and confused? Both at different times?

I love the koan study the way we do it here. I enjoy the challenge of them. I don't like being spoon fed my spiritual understanding and its impact on my personal and moral growth; I like doing it on my own with guidance, and that's how our koan study is structured. Some resonate and some fall flat, and that's okay. Just turn the page and read/do/be another koan.

My only complaint is that in reading through the responses (here and the koans, as I recall those threads) I feel that sometimes it becomes a contest on who can sound most "zenny" rather than the personal engagement and meeting the teachings, and then sharing that experience, like we are talking about here as we rest in the grass hut. But maybe all those folks are deeply moved and sharing what's in their hearts and it just comes out that way. I don't know.

Do you find that Zen Practice and Buddhist Teachings take on different facets of meaning or import for you on different days? Any examples?

Zen is different every day, and that is another beauty of it. I do all the vows every day, and they are different every day. I apply them to my life as it is every day, so they change constantly. They are not dogma. Rather, they are teachings in the greatest sense of the word. How can I learn from these vows today? That is the spirit in which I do them. By "do" I mean recite and reflect upon, to the extent that I can "be" them at least for a moment, and then let that moment plant a seed in my head and heart as i go through that day and all days.

[Risho]

I love that post Jigen!

Gassho,

Risho
-sattoday

[AlanLa]

Thank you, Risho. I enjoy your personal descriptions of struggles. What each of us do in our lives is extremely different, yet we approach it in very much the same way. I find myself always nodding my head every time I read your posts.

I have been working my way through the collected works of Robert Frost (as I spent some time today before writing this) and I can easily understand his poetry as a modern day expression of koans; some open my mind to the immensity of human experience while others are completely baffling.

Moving on....