BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

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  • Jundo
    Treeleaf Founder and Priest
    • Apr 2006
    • 40287

    BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

    Case 1 never ends, yet now comes ...

    CASE 2 - Bodhidharma's Vast Emptiness

    In a further conversation during this case, Emperor Wu asked, "I have built and endowed hundreds of temples and monasteries, and sponsored the ordination of thousands of monks and nuns; what is my merit?" Bodhidharma replied, "No merit." :shock: (Good thing the emperor didn't toss this rude guy in the dungeon!)

    "No merit" to earn ... "Vast emptiness, no holiness" as Buddhism's holy truth ...

    Yet Bodhidharma then headed straight down to holy Shaolin Temple (a place probably supported by Imperial cash), sitting Zazen diligently for nine years!

    Why? It would seem like there is no point if "no merit" and "no holiness", just "vast emptiness". Why bother ... why sit? Likewise, was he actually telling the Emperor not to do these good works, and that they really had no worth or merit?

    Or, perhaps that "no merit ... emptiness no holiness" is the very reason to sit and donate ... and the greatest Holy Merit Fullness!?

    Then, when Bodhidharma was asked "who stands before me," he replied "I don't know!"

    Did that mean that Old B'dharma actually "just didn't have a clue", or ... for he already was surely a Great Master whose reputation proceeded him ... did this "I don't know" manifest a most profound Knowing? Maybe a Knowing, but without some pesky "I" in the way, no separate things to be known, no names and labels and other outside facts to hammer down ... just Not Knowing Knowing?

    But then, if there was already actually Knowing ... why sit??If no 'I', why sit his ass down?

    Added Suggested Question:

    Can you think of some activities in your life that would be/are richer when undertaken dropping completely all thought of reason or merit or goal or holiness/specialness to it?

    Could/can you still manage to diligently and sincerely pursue the activities nonetheless (like Bodhidharma so diligently sitting for so long) working toward its successful accomplishment?

    How would you accomplish (or "non-accomplish") such a thing? What's such accomplishing-non-accomplishing like?


    Gassho, I Don't Know

    Last edited by Jundo; 07-05-2020, 03:53 AM.
    ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE
  • Thane
    Member
    • May 2012
    • 37

    #2
    Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

    Hi folks

    Just a general comment i thought i'd throw in. I have found the first week of studying this book really interesting. Before we began i wondered how we would go about the study. Would we study one koan a day, or perhaps more than one a day. I was pleasantly surprised to find we spent almost a week discussing case 1. I have found this very beneficial. Why? I'm sure if i had bought this book to read on my own i would have charged in and read several koans per night, not giving enough time to really sit with them. I have found reading the same koan for several days has allowed it to permeate my life more than if i had read many of them quickly.

    I am also pleased the Reverend Jundo asked us to think about how we can apply this koan to an experience in our own lives. Again i had not really applied koans to my every day experience but had seen them as some abstract mystical puzzle. I am enjoying now seeing them as teachings that can be applied to my every day experience.

    I will write some thoughts on case 2 once i return from a Scout camp i am running this weekend. Wish me luck, i might need it!

    In gassho

    Thane

    Comment

    • Jundo
      Treeleaf Founder and Priest
      • Apr 2006
      • 40287

      #3
      Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

      Originally posted by Thane

      I will write some thoughts on case 2 once i return from a Scout camp i am running this weekend. Wish me luck, i might need it!
      Remember: No merit no goal, nor holiness or specialness .... yet BE PREPARED & HELP OLD LADIES CROSS THE STREET!

      That's how to earn a "No Merit Badge". :wink:

      Gassho, J (former Cub Scout)
      ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLE

      Comment

      • Myoku
        Member
        • Jul 2010
        • 1491

        #4
        Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

        Having read this case, comments and Jundo's comment, here is take on

        Originally posted by Jundo
        But then, if there was already actually Knowing ... why sit??If no 'I', why sit his ass down?
        Actually; I dont know. The "I" in I dont know is just a good old habbit, the way of speaking,
        the way of thinking we're all more or less used to. So its more Not Knowing.

        Why sit down, now that there is no merrit ? Why not ? There are times when the why's and how's have their
        place and there are times when we just do. ( I again write "we", just because I dont get a sentence without it).
        So I see that Why's as pure intellectual habbit, not of much use at some point. The Why is just a reaching out
        for some model, some simplification of reality.

        Too many words to describe that there is nothing to describe and to explain,
        sit down and see all that I, Why, Holy, Merrit, 9 Years vanish.

        _()_
        Peter Myoku

        Comment

        • RichardH
          Member
          • Nov 2011
          • 2800

          #5
          Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

          Could/can you still manage to diligently and sincerely pursue the activities nonetheless (like Bodhidharma so diligently sitting for so long) working toward its successful accomplishment?
          There is a doing anyway.. like the way a tree grows and the world turns. I have heard (though this may be incorrect) that the word "sinister" comes from the old German word "widdershins", meaning contrary to the movement of the sun. When I am 'sinister", due to confusion and a knotted up sense of self.. there are hellish states and crazy worlds created . The "movement of the sun" is toward resolving that knot.. unbinding, and sweeping away those worlds. When I am unbound and acting spontaneously... I move with/as the movement of the sun, world. and trees growing. For instance if someone trips in front of me, without a thought my hands reach out to steady him. That unselfconscious goodness (with no notion of goodness) is natural doing anyway.... and it is why consciously doing good feels good and doing bad feels bad (conventionally speaking). So the effort to awaken, and to clarify awakening.. is the world's awakening and clarifying. it is, on a relative "level", good work. It feels right.

          That's my take on it anyway.

          Comment

          • Shokai
            Treeleaf Priest
            • Mar 2009
            • 6393

            #6
            Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

            合掌,生開
            gassho, Shokai

            仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai

            "Open to life in a benevolent way"

            https://sarushinzendo.wordpress.com/

            Comment

            • alan.r
              Member
              • Jan 2012
              • 546

              #7
              Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

              Emperor Wu reminds me of someone (me!) as well as these couple lines from T.S Eliot:

              "We think of the key, each in his prison
              Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison"
              -The Waste Land


              How long will I be Emperor Wu,
              asking for the key,
              staring at the lock and grasping at the bars,
              when there is no key,
              no lock and no bars,
              no one even,
              sitting at Shorin all along?

              Gassho,
              Alan
              Shōmon

              Comment

              • Rich
                Member
                • Apr 2009
                • 2614

                #8
                Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

                Vast emptiness is like the ground zero of existence. With practice you find it and return to it over and over. You experience good feelings, bad feelings, big problems, little problems - they all arise from and return to vast emptiness.

                Not knowing is before thinking and as Yasutani Roshi was quoted in the commentary 'it does not break into consciousness. If you know it, at a single stroke its's gone'

                This is probably my number 1 koan story of all time. But that may change. What with 98 more to go.
                _/_
                Rich
                MUHYO
                無 (MU, Emptiness) and 氷 (HYO, Ice) ... Emptiness Ice ...

                https://instagram.com/notmovingmind

                Comment

                • mr.Lou
                  Member
                  • Apr 2012
                  • 61

                  #9
                  Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

                  :|
                  thank you
                  -Lou Sat Today

                  Comment

                  • mr.Lou
                    Member
                    • Apr 2012
                    • 61

                    #10
                    Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

                    Originally posted by Bodhidharma
                    Vast emptiness
                    I read: where there is nothing, everything can exist and everything is possible.
                    Originally posted by Bodhidharma
                    No holiness
                    I read: when nothing is sacred, everything can be equally worshiped and respected.
                    Originally posted by Bodhidharma
                    I don't know
                    I read: Emperor Wu is asking Bodhidharma for his authority or title or justification. Rather than engage in the argument of authority, Bodhidharma simply acknowledges the fact that he does not know what answer Emperor Wu wishes to hear, and thereby does not pretend to be what Emperor Wu wants him to be. By saying he does not know, Bodhidharma is challenging Emperor Wu to accept things as they truly are and not as the Emperor has been hoping them to be; which means that the single secret answer from a Buddha-on-the-mountaintop the Emperor seeks does not actually exist.

                    In general, I think this is a Koan of perspective. I can easily be trapped by my own expectations. The "if only" syndrome. If I approach life with the curiosity of a child, then I am able to see life as it is. If I dismiss my need to prioritize one object over another, then it is in that space that I create a place where all is holy. It is important for me to know these things, but not to cling to their authority or to my own. Bodhidarma's final statement reminds me to know myself and disregard the need to explain myself to others.
                    thank you
                    -Lou Sat Today

                    Comment

                    • Marek
                      Member
                      • Jan 2012
                      • 161

                      #11
                      Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

                      Originally posted by Shokai
                      _/_
                      Gassho,
                      Marek

                      Comment

                      • Jiken
                        Member
                        • Jan 2011
                        • 753

                        #12
                        Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

                        Some things are just to be done.

                        Can you think of some activities in your life that would be/are richer when undertaken dropping completely all thought of reason or merit or goal or holiness/specialness to it?

                        For me any act of kindness. Any giving of gifts. A difficult task but wondrous. Like the picture of the flower in the above picture. It bloomed with no strings attached.

                        Daido

                        Comment

                        • Shokai
                          Treeleaf Priest
                          • Mar 2009
                          • 6393

                          #13
                          Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

                          It took Bodhidharma nine years to convince the Chinese of the merit/value of Zen, when all one need do is sit and realize within an instant; "I" don't know.
                          合掌,生開
                          gassho, Shokai

                          仁道 生開 / Jindo Shokai

                          "Open to life in a benevolent way"

                          https://sarushinzendo.wordpress.com/

                          Comment

                          • Shujin
                            Treeleaf Unsui
                            • Feb 2010
                            • 1090

                            #14
                            Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

                            Can you think of some activities in your life that would be/are richer when undertaken dropping completely all thought of reason or merit or goal or holiness/specialness to it?

                            As someone who tends to take things a bit too seriously, I think almost anything in my life would be more rich with this dropping-off.

                            While reading Dogen's Points to Watch in Practicing the Way, one comes across the phrase "practice without gaining-mind". It strikes me as both motivating and a cautionary tale. I try to unwrap its meaning, grasping at various implications, and simplicity explodes in an epic mess. I should be more in the habit of heeding warnings.

                            gassho,
                            Shujin
                            Kyōdō Shujin 教道 守仁

                            Comment

                            • Jinyo
                              Member
                              • Jan 2012
                              • 1957

                              #15
                              Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 2

                              Appreciatory verse

                              'loss is to drop the pot and not look back'

                              ... not sure why that line is grabbing my attention.

                              .... something about not looking back when we act with good intention - it's easier to grasp
                              emptiness when the ego goes into the pot, along with needs, desires, attachment to outcomes,
                              prejudices, beliefs'.

                              .... dropping the pot - the loss isn't negative - the gain's spontaneous action.

                              .. but not looking back - not so easy :roll:

                              Gassho

                              Willow

                              Comment

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