Dear All,
We will begin our readings from Master "Homeless" Kodo Sawaki's "TOO YOU" next week [details here]:
For today, a little Koan Magic ... Case 96 - Kyuho's Disapproval.
The basic message of this Koan, which is a bit mysterious at first glance, is that all the magic powers in the world that someone might summon (perhaps some of which are actual abilities of folks, some more mythological) are not worth a farthing compared to actual understanding, realization and practice.
The Preface to the Assembly mentions several famous stories of miracles and magic that did not measure up to true Zen satori: In one story, a hermit dies and left many sacred sarira relics (little jewels said to be found in the cremated remains of the Buddha and great monks, but which may actually be nothing more than gallstones and kidney stones
: https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...t-human-pearls ). The story goes that he secreted himself from the world, and did not truly understand the meaning of "emptiness," so the sarira mean little. In another story, birds always miraculously brought flowers and garlands to cover a priest who sat Zazen, but when the priest had true understanding and realization, the birds stopped ... signifying something like that the birds could no longer see him because the enlightened priest had just become quite ordinary, nothing special to be decorated, just blending into the background scenery. Another monk was able to walk on water, or surf across on his straw hat, leaving his traveling companions behind on the shore. He was criticized for selfishness, for our Bodhisattva Vow is to ferry all sentient beings to the other shore together. And then there is the miracle in the main case:
In the Main Case, a Zen Master dies and the question is who will be his successor, understanding the late Master's teachings. The late Master's words ("Go through, desist, cease ... One thought [perhaps a better translation is "one awareness"] is ten thousand years ... Cold ashes and withered trees ... One strip of pure white silk") seem to indicate some very pure state of Kensho in which the mind grows extremely still and quiet, such that all thinking and pondering ceases ... there is only pure awareness that sweeps in all time into timelessness ... where one's mind is as cold and silent as cold ashes or a dead tree ... as pure and clear as pure white silk. One monk says "The meaning is to clarify the one-colored state" [alternate translation: "To clarify the matter of absolute Oneness."] To demonstrate this, the monk then crawls into the Lotus Posture and dies ... perhaps literally, perhaps only signifying his entering a deep, deep death-like trance which he believed was enlightenment. [I think this second meaning is most likely, because suicide is generally considered a serious violation of the Precept on Not Killing, so I do not think that he actually killed himself.] Kyuho criticizes this, saying something like, "Hey, that's a good trick, but you still don't understand the real intent of our Master's words."
So, what is the basis for the criticism? It is something like that the monk knew how to dive deep into a deathlike emptiness, but not that real "enlightenment" is then to live and come back to the world, figuring out the "enlightenment" that is our mundane living is the life. One has to "go through" the place of stopping and ceasing to return to the world of going and doing. The pure mind is not just beyond time, but living in a world of passing time. In Zen poetry, "cold ashes" actually produce heat, and "withered trees" still produce leaves which are filled with life. The "one strip of pure white silk" is cut into pieces to make the clothes we wear, and sometimes sully, as we get on with our work in this muddy world.
The Appreciatory Verse praises Kyoho's understanding of the late Master [Sekiso's] intent, and Kyoho thus carried on the late Master's lineage. Dying while sitting is just a stunt. The line about a "[White] crane in front of the [white] moon" traditionally signifies the wholeness of "Emptiness," where the crane loses its separate self-identity in the "white on white" light. Nonetheless, the crane has its dream of time [which is our dream of life. However, Master Dogen used to say that, while this world is like a dream, it is our dream of our lives, a "real" dream, so we should dream it well.] The man dwelling in the snow is, likewise, a symbol for being lost in "one colored" emptiness. Sitting Zazen in such a way as to lose all sense of space and time ["cut off the ten directions"] is [in alternative translation] "a miserable failure," and one will still bump their head up against this ordinary world. The final line likely means something like, "then the dragon [a symbol of enlightenment] really takes flight and gets going, when it takes one more step to return to this world."
QUESTION: Describe some of the "ordinary" magic powers you possess as just a human being living an ordinary life. Describe some "ordinary miracles" of this life that we take for granted. [At my age, I often think it a miracle just when all the plumbing works right on a trip to the bathroom!
] How has Zen practice helped you realize the ordinary as truly magical, the magical as most ordinary?
Here is a song about putting down the hope for miracles, yet not fearing the impossible and knowing that "there ain't impossible." Not afraid in this world of change, yet there is pain and struggle in this hard life ... keeping on struggling ahead, even when he too sometimes wants to die in the night as the light [like incense] burns ... then running through the busy city without obstacles ... not one, not two, just one way to go ... not afraid, cause already there ... making the impossible into the possible ...
Gassho, J
STLah
We will begin our readings from Master "Homeless" Kodo Sawaki's "TOO YOU" next week [details here]:
For today, a little Koan Magic ... Case 96 - Kyuho's Disapproval.
The basic message of this Koan, which is a bit mysterious at first glance, is that all the magic powers in the world that someone might summon (perhaps some of which are actual abilities of folks, some more mythological) are not worth a farthing compared to actual understanding, realization and practice.
The Preface to the Assembly mentions several famous stories of miracles and magic that did not measure up to true Zen satori: In one story, a hermit dies and left many sacred sarira relics (little jewels said to be found in the cremated remains of the Buddha and great monks, but which may actually be nothing more than gallstones and kidney stones
: https://www.atlasobscura.com/article...t-human-pearls ). The story goes that he secreted himself from the world, and did not truly understand the meaning of "emptiness," so the sarira mean little. In another story, birds always miraculously brought flowers and garlands to cover a priest who sat Zazen, but when the priest had true understanding and realization, the birds stopped ... signifying something like that the birds could no longer see him because the enlightened priest had just become quite ordinary, nothing special to be decorated, just blending into the background scenery. Another monk was able to walk on water, or surf across on his straw hat, leaving his traveling companions behind on the shore. He was criticized for selfishness, for our Bodhisattva Vow is to ferry all sentient beings to the other shore together. And then there is the miracle in the main case:In the Main Case, a Zen Master dies and the question is who will be his successor, understanding the late Master's teachings. The late Master's words ("Go through, desist, cease ... One thought [perhaps a better translation is "one awareness"] is ten thousand years ... Cold ashes and withered trees ... One strip of pure white silk") seem to indicate some very pure state of Kensho in which the mind grows extremely still and quiet, such that all thinking and pondering ceases ... there is only pure awareness that sweeps in all time into timelessness ... where one's mind is as cold and silent as cold ashes or a dead tree ... as pure and clear as pure white silk. One monk says "The meaning is to clarify the one-colored state" [alternate translation: "To clarify the matter of absolute Oneness."] To demonstrate this, the monk then crawls into the Lotus Posture and dies ... perhaps literally, perhaps only signifying his entering a deep, deep death-like trance which he believed was enlightenment. [I think this second meaning is most likely, because suicide is generally considered a serious violation of the Precept on Not Killing, so I do not think that he actually killed himself.] Kyuho criticizes this, saying something like, "Hey, that's a good trick, but you still don't understand the real intent of our Master's words."
So, what is the basis for the criticism? It is something like that the monk knew how to dive deep into a deathlike emptiness, but not that real "enlightenment" is then to live and come back to the world, figuring out the "enlightenment" that is our mundane living is the life. One has to "go through" the place of stopping and ceasing to return to the world of going and doing. The pure mind is not just beyond time, but living in a world of passing time. In Zen poetry, "cold ashes" actually produce heat, and "withered trees" still produce leaves which are filled with life. The "one strip of pure white silk" is cut into pieces to make the clothes we wear, and sometimes sully, as we get on with our work in this muddy world.
The Appreciatory Verse praises Kyoho's understanding of the late Master [Sekiso's] intent, and Kyoho thus carried on the late Master's lineage. Dying while sitting is just a stunt. The line about a "[White] crane in front of the [white] moon" traditionally signifies the wholeness of "Emptiness," where the crane loses its separate self-identity in the "white on white" light. Nonetheless, the crane has its dream of time [which is our dream of life. However, Master Dogen used to say that, while this world is like a dream, it is our dream of our lives, a "real" dream, so we should dream it well.] The man dwelling in the snow is, likewise, a symbol for being lost in "one colored" emptiness. Sitting Zazen in such a way as to lose all sense of space and time ["cut off the ten directions"] is [in alternative translation] "a miserable failure," and one will still bump their head up against this ordinary world. The final line likely means something like, "then the dragon [a symbol of enlightenment] really takes flight and gets going, when it takes one more step to return to this world."
QUESTION: Describe some of the "ordinary" magic powers you possess as just a human being living an ordinary life. Describe some "ordinary miracles" of this life that we take for granted. [At my age, I often think it a miracle just when all the plumbing works right on a trip to the bathroom!
] How has Zen practice helped you realize the ordinary as truly magical, the magical as most ordinary? Here is a song about putting down the hope for miracles, yet not fearing the impossible and knowing that "there ain't impossible." Not afraid in this world of change, yet there is pain and struggle in this hard life ... keeping on struggling ahead, even when he too sometimes wants to die in the night as the light [like incense] burns ... then running through the busy city without obstacles ... not one, not two, just one way to go ... not afraid, cause already there ... making the impossible into the possible ...
Gassho, J
STLah
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