If everyone feels up to it, we will turn to Case 94 - Tozan's Illness.
This is page 299 in the PDF link, if you need:
This Koan plays on the fundamental Zen revelation that everything is Empty, so even as we get sick, there is an aspect of reality that cannot be sick. It is something like saying that the ocean is still the ocean, even if some of the fish in the ocean are sick. The ocean is still precisely the ocean even if filled with fish, and even if there are no fish left in it. And since the fish are not just individual fish, but are the ocean swimming in the guise of fish, and since the ocean is always the ocean, the fish have the aspect beyond sickness even when they themselves get sick.
Furthermore, we are each other and all things. So, you are not just someone who has a fever due to covid, or who is sick due to cancer. The covid virus is another face of you as covid virus, and likewise the cancer cells. You may be sick, but the virus is thriving, the cancer is thriving. Since the cancer or the virus are also you as cancer and virus, and since you are just the cancer and virus as you, therefore you are thriving too so long as the virus and cancer cells are thriving.
Nonetheless, you are still sick and feeling miserable. The fish are still sick although the ocean, which they also are, flows on and on.
As I have mentioned before, we also do not quite believe in death (even though we die) for, like waves that rise and fall, or fish that come and go ... because the waves and the fish are just the sea ... for so long as the sea flows on and on, the waves and fish flow on and on even though they may also vanish.
Tozan knows this. Even as he is sick, he know this aspect that cannot be sick or ever die. Nonetheless, he is sick and will someday die too.
I would read the Preface references of "inferior/superior" "mean/noble" "heavy/light" as Zen poetic code words for the "relative" (divided world of sickness and death) and "absolute" (the undivided, thus free of sickness and death). So, the Preface, in my reading is saying something like "although we get sick (the elements of our body are out of proper adjustment) and die, there is also this in which we do not get sick and die ... yet, nonetheless, both are true, both have their place, so we will still get sick and die even though, seen this other way, we do not." Something like that.
In the Main Case, Tozan is sick yet also knows this "someone" (our other face) which is never sick. I take the lines about "looking after others" to mean something like, although Tozan lives in a world of "separate self and others" that he lives in the normal way, like you and me, sometimes getting sick or meeting other disaster, he also knows the facet where "sickness is not seen." In his practice, he has gotten pretty skilled in living both facets as one ... so sick, yet knowing beyond sickness too. Both take care of each other, like a doctor needs her patient to doctor, a patient needs a doctor to be a patient. Nonetheless, though Tozan knows our face free of sickness, he is still stuck in bed and feeling poorly. All true.
The Appreciatory Verse says that, even stuck in this "stinking skin bag of flesh" (our fragile body) we can see beyond this, where the "nose is straight, the skull is dry" (traditional Zen images for having seen beyond sickness and death even while still in this world of sickness and death). The "old doctor" (the Wisdom of Emptiness) sees no ailments, but we "little ones" (ignorant ordinary us) struggle to understand that. The fields' draining, autumn passing, clouds dissipating, mountains growing cold ... like our aging bodies as time passes, sometimes getting ill ... just happens in its natural way. The last lines (about not cheating, using "that which cannot be accomplished exhaustively" and the tree-top) probably mean just something like "really really dive into this wonderful mystery about how this all works together, don't just skim the surface."
Question: Describe a situation where life hands you a disaster like sickness, a death in the family, tree falling on your house, a war in which your country is invaded, or any one of countless situations where you face great hardship. Describe that hardship and pain. Next, however, describe that same situation from the "oceanic" perspective in which there is no loss, no death, no war, no pain. Also, if you can, describe the situation from the "we are each other in other guise" perspective in which the loser is just the winner losing, and the winner is just the loser winning. Which aspect is true? Are they all true?
By the way, Koan imagery is like song imagery. In this old classic, hear "being away from my baby" as referencing feeling like a separate self distanced from "Emptiness" or "Buddha," and then it is its own Appreciatory Verse, the same word games that the Koan plays ...
Gassho, J
STLah
This is page 299 in the PDF link, if you need:
This Koan plays on the fundamental Zen revelation that everything is Empty, so even as we get sick, there is an aspect of reality that cannot be sick. It is something like saying that the ocean is still the ocean, even if some of the fish in the ocean are sick. The ocean is still precisely the ocean even if filled with fish, and even if there are no fish left in it. And since the fish are not just individual fish, but are the ocean swimming in the guise of fish, and since the ocean is always the ocean, the fish have the aspect beyond sickness even when they themselves get sick.
Furthermore, we are each other and all things. So, you are not just someone who has a fever due to covid, or who is sick due to cancer. The covid virus is another face of you as covid virus, and likewise the cancer cells. You may be sick, but the virus is thriving, the cancer is thriving. Since the cancer or the virus are also you as cancer and virus, and since you are just the cancer and virus as you, therefore you are thriving too so long as the virus and cancer cells are thriving.
Nonetheless, you are still sick and feeling miserable. The fish are still sick although the ocean, which they also are, flows on and on.
As I have mentioned before, we also do not quite believe in death (even though we die) for, like waves that rise and fall, or fish that come and go ... because the waves and the fish are just the sea ... for so long as the sea flows on and on, the waves and fish flow on and on even though they may also vanish.
Tozan knows this. Even as he is sick, he know this aspect that cannot be sick or ever die. Nonetheless, he is sick and will someday die too.
I would read the Preface references of "inferior/superior" "mean/noble" "heavy/light" as Zen poetic code words for the "relative" (divided world of sickness and death) and "absolute" (the undivided, thus free of sickness and death). So, the Preface, in my reading is saying something like "although we get sick (the elements of our body are out of proper adjustment) and die, there is also this in which we do not get sick and die ... yet, nonetheless, both are true, both have their place, so we will still get sick and die even though, seen this other way, we do not." Something like that.
In the Main Case, Tozan is sick yet also knows this "someone" (our other face) which is never sick. I take the lines about "looking after others" to mean something like, although Tozan lives in a world of "separate self and others" that he lives in the normal way, like you and me, sometimes getting sick or meeting other disaster, he also knows the facet where "sickness is not seen." In his practice, he has gotten pretty skilled in living both facets as one ... so sick, yet knowing beyond sickness too. Both take care of each other, like a doctor needs her patient to doctor, a patient needs a doctor to be a patient. Nonetheless, though Tozan knows our face free of sickness, he is still stuck in bed and feeling poorly. All true.
The Appreciatory Verse says that, even stuck in this "stinking skin bag of flesh" (our fragile body) we can see beyond this, where the "nose is straight, the skull is dry" (traditional Zen images for having seen beyond sickness and death even while still in this world of sickness and death). The "old doctor" (the Wisdom of Emptiness) sees no ailments, but we "little ones" (ignorant ordinary us) struggle to understand that. The fields' draining, autumn passing, clouds dissipating, mountains growing cold ... like our aging bodies as time passes, sometimes getting ill ... just happens in its natural way. The last lines (about not cheating, using "that which cannot be accomplished exhaustively" and the tree-top) probably mean just something like "really really dive into this wonderful mystery about how this all works together, don't just skim the surface."
Question: Describe a situation where life hands you a disaster like sickness, a death in the family, tree falling on your house, a war in which your country is invaded, or any one of countless situations where you face great hardship. Describe that hardship and pain. Next, however, describe that same situation from the "oceanic" perspective in which there is no loss, no death, no war, no pain. Also, if you can, describe the situation from the "we are each other in other guise" perspective in which the loser is just the winner losing, and the winner is just the loser winning. Which aspect is true? Are they all true?
By the way, Koan imagery is like song imagery. In this old classic, hear "being away from my baby" as referencing feeling like a separate self distanced from "Emptiness" or "Buddha," and then it is its own Appreciatory Verse, the same word games that the Koan plays ...
Gassho, J
STLah
)
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