TREELEAF PODCAST - KOANS FROM THE BLUE CLIFF RECORD SERIES

[Bion]

Hello, all
Today our podcast begins a new series taking a dive into Koans from the Blue Cliff Record. We begin with the first five cases. Please listen to the new episode of our Treeleaf Zendo Podcast on your favourite podcasting platform, or you can play it right here. This episode is a recording of the talk given live, during the October monthly zazenkai.

Gassho
sat lah

[Bion]

Hello, friends
A new episode of our Treeleaf Zendo Podcast is now available for streaming, and we continue to look at koans from the Blue Cliff Record. This month, it's cases 7 to 12. You can listen to our podcast on your favourite streaming platform, or just click PLAY below:

Gassho
sat lah

[Tokan]

Thank you

Gassho, Tokan (satlah)

[Tai Shi]

Yes Jundo Cao Cao Cao, hello, Cao. The great ground of being, like three pounds of flax. I, a boy, I was impressed with the Fundamentalist message of salvation through Jesus Christ. My parents' marriage was on the rocks, and we were members of the First Baptist Church, and Sunday when I was at church, my baby brother was quiet near mom, I walked down the aisle for Salvation. I was seven, and this is what I thought "Since Daddy was a janitor at the church, and he was a college student, perhaps if I got saved, Mom and Dad would stay together. I did not know this, but I had become a little pawn in a game of divorce. I had heard the talk, seen the "kiss" -- and I knew if I "got saved" perhaps Mom and Dad would stay together, and I had heard that Herb Goble in architecture, and Dad in engineering had decided to go deer hunting in the fall, and dad was expected to take vitamin B12. This substance and the deer hunting trip would make Dad right. A few weeks after they returned with deer for families to eat, Dad packed his stuff, clothes, toothbrush, and camera equipment, and left in our red station wagon to return to his old job at Shell Oil Company as a driller, a marriage was not meant to be. Somehow, we ended up in the little berg outside of Ojai, and we were pawns, brother and I while our parents "got divorced." I had my tonsils out informing the doctor that I too would grow up to be a doctor. I did go to college, and my brother never forgave me for leaving home for he had given me the only gift he has ever given me except taking out to dinner. That has been nice, and the last time we were in Carlisle, Iowa, visiting brother, he took my wife of 42 years, and I out to dinner, and see this, I am no longer saved but I am. It is the attitude that true Christians believe that the Earth isn't the great ground of being, but the world is an evil place, so no movies, dancing, or card playing draw the soul into worldly sin. Now I have studied the Dharma, and I believe the Earth is a miraculous place, and we are meant to enjoy this great ground of being with our six senses, and the sixth is my thinking. So mine is to think, and my father is 94, and he has given up thinking for Christian beliefs, and mom is dead, and I believe it was a mom who left for Des Moines, Iowa, and I went to Grinnell College, and I was smart, but not as smart as my friends, so I proved them wrong. I moved to Iowa City to attend the University of Iowa, graduating with an MA, EdS to prove Daddy wrong, that I was smart, and finally, at age 73, he knows that finding the love of my life, Marjorie, and graduating with two advanced degrees, and becoming Community College teacher, eventually fathering a child who did earn the PhD in Japanese literature, and comp lit, she is now Professor at a good university, The University of Denver, a Methodist School, so she has fulfilled, what dad earned the second best MFA in creative writing, and was it a gift? No, because I have excelled, though I could not be a priest, I became an honorable Ubasoku. I had circumvented Dad because my final degree held one more letter F and I had earned three, two of which were terminal, and one day Dad, knowing I drank no alcohol said, an MFA in like "A PhD, is like a PhD?" Yes, Dad, it is like a PhD, and I have earned 122 graduate credits, almost twice as required as the PhD. a 3.69 GPA, and a 3.9 GPA." I had finally outdone Dad. Dad. This is a hollow accomplishment, but I think the truth is that Earth is the great ground of BEING. Jundo please let this stand; it is a great many realizations.
Gassho
lah/sat