BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

[Rich]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

"How and where in your life can you find the wanderer? How can you treasure the homeless? What is this this that belongs without having belongings? Being homeless, isn'it the real way home. Always homeless, isn't everywhere home? If sutra lead to sutra, that is heresy, cold stone religion principle and stuff. Painful rigidity rooted in the worship of dead scriptures. "

When I was a young man traveling around with all my possessions in a small knapsack maybe I tasted a little homelessness and being the wanderer. Along the way many obligations, responsibilities and possessions accrued which led me into a suffering dream. Now having undone much of that from my mind I can occasionally appreciate just breathing. I don't know if it was Case 3 or coincidence but breathing seems slower, easier and freer.

[Taigu]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

Love your post Rich, so much respect for what you have been through and who you are.
And, at the same time, you know it is not about traveling light or being successful. The wanderer is found in a child, a tramp, a millionaire. It doesn't rely on external conditions. It is a state of freedom, fluidity, not sticking or abiding, and that has nothing to do with the stages you mention. The stages you refer to are stages we all experience going through life: poor to start with, then not too poor, then, with age, pain and lots of other things, light and poor again.
The wanderer and the homeless are regardless of a roof or not, they don't rely on having or not having.

But I am sure you have got that.

Sorry to bother you.

gassho


T.

[Risho]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

I find reality undoes me alot, whenever things don't go my way. I am so young in my practice. Thank you for your explanations of the metaphors Taigu sensei. I cannot sincerely say that I've found the wanderer yet. I feel that I still have a lot of practice to do.

Gassho

Risho

[Rich]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

Taigu, thanks for your perspective and teaching. I always appreciate that. Right now I don't have anything except the chirping birds and a squirel visiting for food.

[Taigu]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

That's plenty :lol: :wink:


gassho


T,

[Kyonin]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

A few years back I had this huge problem. One day I woke up and I had no job, no money, no home, no food... only what I was wearing.

To the eyes of friends and family I was in the worst state of human life.

To my eyes, I was happy and liberated. Since then, my practice has been the axis of everything.

Thank you for your comments, Taigu.

This koan means a lot. I shall sit with it tonight.

[Shohei]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

I guess I do not have much to say on this. I want to grab it and hold it to my life looking to measure.
The breath in and out while I silently painted along side my wife all weekend, carrying my daughter the middle of the night to the bathroom, cleaning up the cold cat pee from an ancient feline friend(no comments there, we may all end up there too) that is when my deluded eyes catch a glimpse of the homeless wander. Always there but my grasping makes him out of sight (thinking there is other things to be doing- time better spent). There is not one thing holier than the other- they are all, as already said, the living heartsutra. I often forget to hum along.

Gassho
Shohei

[mr.Lou]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

My best response to this koan comes from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes," which is a short story that can be read in its entirety here at this link:

http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheEmperorsNewClothes_e.html

"But he hasn't got anything on," a little child said

[Shugen]

BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

I don't have anything to add.

Ron


Shugen

[Rimon]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

Despite there is no mirror, dancing to Taigu's music, the inner and outer worlds embrace each other, and a hundred thousand million billion sutras unfold.

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood to see you back

[Graceleejenkins]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

. . .cleaning up the cold cat pee from an ancient feline friend(no comments there, we may all end up there too) . . .

Gassho
Shohei

Gassho to the friend of the ancient feline. _/_ grace

[Myoku]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

Hello everyone,
let me first say that - as a non-native english speaker - I have some trouble with vocabulary in this book, and looking up in a dictionary not seems to come close to what is meant in this context at times. Anyway, here we go:

Reading the sutras in our day to day life is fine, but sometimes not easy for me. Thats why I read the sutras written on paper, or published on youtube by our wonderful teachers here.

How are you undone?!!!

Well, I am. You are. We all are, only in our minds we tend to believe in being done. When I was around the age of 22 I believed I had an answer for everything, and its a long way to get to the point where you see, accept and live that you have an answer for nothing.

Gassho
Myoku

[Myozan Kodo]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

Gassho. Great thread.

[Dosho]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

Life is indeed our temple...every breath and exhalation a chance to be "born" and to "die". New self, no self. Endless sutras.

Gassho,
Dosho

[Jiken]

Re: BOOK OF EQUANIMITY - Case 3

Gassho. Nothing to add to this.

Daido