Mu

[Guest]

I've been reading the chapter entitled 'Bussho' from the 2nd volume of the Nishijima/Cross edition of the Shobogenzo, and I was really struck by Dogen's discussion of 'being without' and the 'Does a dog have Buddha nature?' koan. It made me want to read more about that koan and Mu. I know that in Soto Zen we don't sit with koans but still study and reflect on them, so I was wondering if anyone could recommend some reading material to help my reflections.

I had a quick look through the reading list and couldn't see anything specific. In particular, I came across this book on Amazon, and was wondering whether anyone had read it and would recommend it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/08617164...I26I6D2AMQ8XF7

Also, is this okay for me to be exploring in the early stage of practice or should I leave it a while? I just felt fascinated by the whole subject.

Thanks.

Gassho
Lucy
ST/LAH

[Jundo]

I had a quick look through the reading list and couldn't see anything specific. In particular, I came across this book on Amazon, and was wondering whether anyone had read it and would recommend it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/08617164...I26I6D2AMQ8XF7

Hi Lucy,

"Book of Mu" is a very interesting book. However, all or almost all of the presentations are from Teachers of Koan Introspection Zazen, so their interpretation and approach is very heavily of that flavor, and often very different from Dogen and the Soto approach.

If you don't mind a very good but serious history book devoted to just the history of the Mu Koan, this is excellent, tells you much about the real history of the development of Zen Buddhism in China and Japan, and is just a great read. Of course, it covers the spiritual meaning(s) of this Koan, but shows how that developed and changed in many hands over the centuries.

I understand that this version is posted with some understanding, so not a bootleg ...

https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Heine-Cats.pdf

You can read a few page review by another scholar here ...

https://www.academia.edu/25116085/Review_of_Steven_Heine_Like_Cats_and_Dogs_Contesting_the_Mu_K%C5%8Dan_in_Zen_Buddhism_reviewer_Christoph_Anderl_

I may post later some more about this koan as it resonated in my heart.

Gassho, Jundo

SatTodayLAH

[Jishin]

Mu

Hi Lucy,

I read the book of Mu several times. I guess I was looking for some answer. It felt very “sexy” to work with the all mighty first koan Mu. A lot of times the cover of the book says it all. No need to read it. Mumonkan = The Gateless Barrier or The Gateless Gate. The answer to most Koans is it’s not a problem unless it’s a problem. Don’t pick up a Koan and it’s not yours to solve. That’s it. Problem solved. Koan solved. There is no gate and there never was. Don’t make a gate.

My centless cent.


Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Eishuu]

Thanks for the links Jundo. The cats and dogs book looks interesting.

Thanks for your perspective Jishin. I'll bear that in mind.

I was particularly intrigued by the footnote which said that "The problem of the meaning of 無（MU) can be solved by following a concrete process." and I wondered what that process was.

Gassho
Lucy
ST/LAH

[Jundo]

I was particularly intrigued by the footnote which said that "The problem of the meaning of 無（MU) can be solved by following a concrete process." and I wondered what that process was.

Which footnote is that? Can you show me.

The "Mu" Koan itself is not so hard to understand intellectually. Of course, intellectual understanding does not get us very far in Zen, and this must truly get into the bones and how we experience life. However, the basic point is something like this (there are actually a few variations on how the Koan is understood discussed in the Heine book, but this is generally the story):

In traditional Mahayana Buddhist thought, all sentient beings have "Buddha Nature," which is something like their underlying already present Buddhaness, or at least, their potential to become a perfect Buddha someday (or both!). Dogs, being viewed even then by most people as "sentient beings" thus would have Buddha Nature, so the answer to the question "Does a dog have Buddha Nature" would be a Yes.

So, to say "No" is shocking, and seemingly incorrect going against basic Buddhist Teachings. One way to look at why the "no" response is given is simply a contrarian response that might mean something like "I refuse to get caught up in silly philosophical discussions about whether a dog has Buddha Nature or not. We Zen folks just pet the dog, we don't worry too much about arcane and head clogging points of dogness") The older versions of the Koan actually have the answer given twice, first time YES and second time NO. The meaning is still something like "I won't get tangled in your word games, so I will say WHATEVER and pet the dog."

But there is even more than that:

The word MU (which, if I recall, happens to also sound in Chinese like a dog barking ... but that is just a cute side point), also happens to mean EMPTINESS, and this Buddhist "EMPTYNESS" is the sweeping Wholeness that sweeps in all things, including people and dogs, and which sweeps away all opposites and questions of our divided world. In Emptyness, one might say that there are no "yes's" and no "no's" and no questions or answers ... and only a resounding Buddha's YES YES YES! that sweeps in all earthly yes and no.

Something like that.

So, that latter is the real meaning of Mu.

However, again, it is not enough to just have some intellectual understanding here, but rather, through Zen Practice (both Rinzai and Soto) one must come to have this YES YES YES! in your bones and everywhere else. In fact, that YES YES YES is our "Buddha Nature!"

We YES YES YES by Shikantaza here. In Koan Introspection, the folks get themselves so wrapped up in the MU MU MU ... without even really thinking of any of the above while they just chew on the sound ... that they have a mental break through to some experience of this. It is very different from our approach, even if the destination (to right where we and dogs have been all along) is the same.

Here is, by the way, a video of a monk in a Rinzai temple presenting his MU to his teacher in Dokusan (interview, which Rinzai folks call Sanzen) during Koan Introspection Zazen. Good for them, I would not be caught dead mooing like a cow.

I say MEHHH to this MUUUUU.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjyqGnWGftE

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Eishuu]

Wow, that sounded more like a lion roar!

The footnote is on page 23 of Bussho. It's no.140. Looking at it in context I think I may have misunderstood...I'm not sure. In the main text, it also says "Joshu says, 'It is without.' When we hear this expression, there are concrete paths by which to learn it"

Because the discussion of the koan came after a whole section on living beings 'being without' Buddha Nature, there seemed to be an emphasis on the 'have' part of the question and I got the impression Dogen was saying that Buddha Nature is not something you can 'have' or possess, nothing to gain or attain kind of thing. On p18, he critiques the phrase "All living beings have the Buddha Nature".

"'All living beings have the Buddha-nature'. He needs to get rid of the have in have the Buddha-nature." and then the footnote says "...getting rid is what makes the world one, and to make the world one is the transcendent way". I really love this whole section; something about the phrase 'being without' feels like an invitation to let go.

Thanks for your explanation. I found this particularly helpful.

"However, again, it is not enough to just have some intellectual understanding here, but rather, through Zen Practice (both Rinzai and Soto) one must come to have this YES YES YES! in your bones and everywhere else. In fact, that YES YES YES is our "Buddha Nature!"

We YES YES YES by Shikantaza here. In Koan Introspection, the folks get themselves so wrapped up in the MU MU MU ... without even really thinking of any of the above while they just chew on the sound ... that they have a mental break through to some experience of this. It is very different from our approach, even if the destination (to right where we and dogs have been all along) is the same. "

I was wondering, if we don't do koan reflection in Soto Zen in Zazen then how would you recommend dealing with koans? Is it a more gentle and gradual approach to understanding them?

Gassho
Lucy
ST/LAH

[Jishin]

The Mooing in the video sounds very sincere but it looks like they are doing some damage to their vocal chords and some other stuff could happen due to the partial Valsalva maneuver.

Thanks but no thanks. I just rather not take the bait and simply sit. Don’t like doing extra laundry if I don’t have to.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Shokai]

mooo.jpg


gassho,
sat/LAH

[Meishin]

Hi,

A close friend practices in a Koan Inspection sangha and his koan is Mu. I respect his practice and he respects mine. When we have lunch, we talk about the commonality of our practice.

There are undoubtedly many funnies that could be made about Shikantaza.

Lucy raises a good question.

I was wondering, if we don't do koan reflection in Soto Zen in Zazen then how would you recommend dealing with koans? Is it a more gentle and gradual approach to understanding them?

I thought about her question and don't know the answer. What I notice is that instead of burrowing in on a koan such as Mu, in our many readings (most of which are filled with koans), it is more as Jundo has described -- walking in a light mist that eventually soaks the body. I do value everyday koans in daily life as well as more formal koans encountered in reading. They force going beyond an intellectual understanding.

Gassho
Meishin
Sat Today LAH

[Jundo]

REWORKED POST ...

I was wondering, if we don't do koan reflection in Soto Zen in Zazen then how would you recommend dealing with koans? Is it a more gentle and gradual approach to understanding them?

Gassho
Lucy
ST/LAH

Ah, I can best explain this by the analogy of politically inspired rap music. So, I heard this great song by an African American rapper regarding his childhood playing with "Dukes of Hazzard" toys (an American TV show way back, about some good ol' boys in the South driving around in a Confederate Flag decorated car named for Robert E. Lee. The song is about the weirdness of his parents letting him play with symbols of slavery etc, and his ambiguous feelings toward the whole thing ... )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HLM4NK1qZM

I would have missed a lot of it, and not gotten the use of language "for example, the title "Generally" is a play on "General Lee," but it is making an understandable point when explained.

From an interview :

Breeze Brewin
[I was in Toys-R-Us] Baggin' all these whack toys. Try to lack noise. Peace and quiet. Cease a riot constructively, then what I see, the General Lee.

And I said, you know what? I need to explore this idea. Why did they think that was OK? Why did they think that they can show this image and make us champion that image? Why is it OK to make our pain this pop icon? Why was it OK? I just wanted to attack it, that you would have the audacity to do that. I was just thinking, not with my kids.

Neil Drumming
So then there's the chorus after that, right?

Breeze Brewin
Yeah. So the chorus is like, the General Lee, representin' for your clan. The General Lee, for real, somebody pulled a fast one. The General Lee, now I'm starting to overstand. The General Lee wasn't the first. Won't be the last one.

Neil Drumming
I love that line, "Somebody pulled a fast one," just because it's nice. It's like, the car is fast. It's a really nice line.

Breeze Brewin
I appreciate that.

Ok, so, most of the Koans are actually like that. They are making serious points based on very standard Mahayana/Zen teachings like the relationship of this "relative" world of division to the "Absolute." The Koans can be explained. However, then (like the music above) one needs to just dig the tune. Because it is set to music and a beat, the above track is much more powerful than just a statement such as "African Americans adult feels strange about a car he loved as a child which has a symbol of slavery on it." All the symbolism and drama of the thing really hits one in the gutt, gets into the bones, become marrow.

One thing about the Koans is that they are 1000 year old rap songs. That means that they are also filled with puns, inside jokes, references to popular poems and songs ... that nobody now remembers, or which don't really translate. It is like my trying to tell a story with "General Lee," "Bling" and "Al Pacino" or "Dukes of Hazzard" to a Bulgarian man 700 years in the future (and we don't have the benefit of some future internet, so many of the old jokes and poems are lost to us and forgotten).

Today, I explained this Koan in Dogen's Tenzo Kyokun ...

There was once a monk name Xuefeng serving as temple cook under the great Zen Master Dongshan. One day, when Xuefeng was washing rise, Dongshan asked him, “Are you washing the rice to remove the sand, or washing the sand to remove the rice?”

Xuefeng responded, “Sand and rice are both washed away together.”

Dongshan then said, “If so, what are we gonna eat for dinner?”

At that, Xuefeng overturned the washing bowl and walked out. Dongshan said, “You should please go and cook someplace else. Find a new kitchen and temple.”

Jundo Note – These Koans can often be taken several ways, some folks say that we should not try to eplain them at all. I disagree. In most of these stories, the actors were trying to make a point, although often in a witty or dramatic way. So, what might the above story be on about?

Perhaps, getting back to the twin vision of Samsara (this mixed up world) and Nirvana (the clear realm of Buddha) that runs all through Zen Buddhism, the question about the “rice and sand” was really about that. Dongshan was asking one of those funny Zen questions using rice and sand to be asking something like, “So, are you washing away samsara to find nirvana, or are you washing nirvana to clean samsara.” Something like that. In answer, saus that “both are washed away,” probably meaning Emptiness in which all opposites, including the opposites of “samsara vs. nirvana, delusion vs. enlightenment” are all washed away into the flowing water of Emptiness. In emptiness, samsara and delusion both dissolve as separate things. At that point, Dongshan asks what they are going to eat if both are washed away, perhaps meaning that if all separate things dissappear into Emptiness, then where are we going to live because we need all that separate stuff to have a life.

At that point, it is not clear. Sometimes Zen folks kick over buckets to indicate that they are just not going to play word games. However, in this case, I am pretty sure that poor Xuefeng just got annoyed, packed up his knives and stormed out. In any case, it was pretty inconsiderate of all the monks in his charge who would be without rice that day.

Remember that Zen Practice is always about seeking to experience and know “the Absolute,” “Emptiness” and such, that great flowing beyond individuality. However, it is considered a sickness to only know that and get lost there. One must then bring it back to this ordinary world and get on with daily life.

Okay, that is the first way we handle Koans. After understanding a bit about what they are about, pour yourself and find yourself in the music.

Which takes us to the second way Koans are approached in Soto, which is what Dogen did. He not only played the music ... he wilded it it all up as Jazz! He did it to bring it to life ...

I've described Dogen as a JHANA JAZZ MAN-POET, riffing and free expressing-reexpressing-bending-straightening-unbinding-releasing the 'standard tunes' of the Sutras and Koans. The untrained ear can't make head or tail of it, complex rhythms, notes flying, wild tempo ...

Above is what John Coltrane did-undid-diddled-redid, for example, with "MY FAVORITE THINGS", that really "squaresville" (though lovely in its own way) tune that you may recall being chirped by Julie Andrews in THE SOUND OF MUSIC (a great story)! For that reason, a familiarity with the original 'standards' of the American songbook helps a lot in getting where Coltrane was coming from and going to here. Likewise, a good grounding in traditional Buddhist, Mahayana and Zen philosophy and perspectives is vital to getting what Dogen is up to. But Dogen, Master of the WordJazz expression of the Wordless, then takes off bending and re-enlivening those "standard tunes" in ways felt in the skin, flesh, bones, and marrow. Dogen, for example, frequently re-wild-ed and bent up passages from the already wild and bent Lotus Sutra into something even more bent-iferous and wildacios! Sometimes with Dogen, one can make out clearly the "original melody" he is working with ... a Sutra passage, a Poem, an Old Koan ... and sometimes barely so, for it is not always the "point" he is trying to make through reasoned words, but "the sound, man, the feeling of the music". Dogen and Coltrane make their own musical expression the same but different from the 'standards' that the playful playing is playing upon ... expressing Timeless Old Truths in ways never expressed before ... making Timeless New Truths in the process ... but one also should not forget that that "standard" tune is in there too, and keeps popping up as the theme

The Shobogenzo, for example, is a rather thick and thorny maze to most readers. But once Dogen's basic ways of expression are understood, one can read the entirety with a bit more ease ... though never easy, mind you, as Dogen (like Coltrane) may often have sometimes let the notes and feeling lead him where they would, and may not have been always himself quite sure where the music was taking him -- or what he himself "meant"! Nonetheless, each certainly knew what he "meant" cause of the meaning of the feelings felt!

More here ...

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?9332-SIT-A-LONG-with-JUNDO-Dogen-A-Love-Supreme

So, Dogen is more like this other, really wild rap song that also tries to make a point about the African American experience, but in a much less literal way ... It is a great song about slave babies thrown into the ocean, and they learn to breathe down there and resurface to find the mothers they lost, and end up in a war with the descendants of the slavers ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT1ujfuXFVo

Lyrics here ...

https://genius.com/Clipping-the-deep-lyrics

“The Deep” delves into a different Afrofuturist myth, one that Drexciya created and used as a storyline throughout their discography. It centers around the idea that “Drexciya” is a civilization under the ocean made up of the unborn children of pregnant African women who were thrown off slave ships. According to the myth, the babies learned how to breathe underwater in their mothers' wombs and began living at the bottom of the sea. In the liner notes of Drexciya’s 1997 compilation The Quest, the duo wrote:

Could it be possible for humans to breathe underwater? A fetus in its mother’s womb is certainly alive in an aquatic environment.
During the greatest Holocaust the world has ever known, pregnant America-bound African slaves were thrown overboard by the thousands during labor for being sick and disruptive cargo. Is it possible that they could have given birth at sea to babies that never needed air?
Are Drexciyans water-breathing, aquatically mutated descendants of those unfortunate victims of human greed? Have they been spared by God to teach us or terrorize us?

Pretty weird, wild lyrics, but making a powerful point. Also, takes a few minutes to get into ... BUT GREAT TRACK! BRILLIANT! OPERA! Also, just rolling oneself into the music is much more powerful than some simple intellectual explanation about "African American experience of feeling torn from one's roots" etc.

So, that is what Dogen tried to do, wilding up some of the already pretty wild Koans and Sutra stories to make a point about pretty standard Mahayana/Zen Buddhist teaching.


Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Meishin]

Okay, that is the first way we handle Koans. After understanding a bit about what they are about, pour yourself and find yourself in the music.

Which takes us to the second way Koans are approached in Soto, which is what Dogen did. He not only played the music ... he wilded it it all up as Jazz! He did it to bring it to life ...

Gassho
Meishin
SatToday LAH

[Enjaku]

How many Buddhist Priests reference Drexciya Research Lab and Coltrane while making the same point? I love this Sangha.



Enjaku
Sat LAH

[Jundo]

Actually, please bear with me. I changed rap song.

This is the one I was looking for first, a rap song I heard about by an African American regarding his childhood playing with "Dukes of Hazzard" toys (an American TV show way back, about some good ol' boys in the South driving around in a Confederate Flag decorated car named for Robert E. Lee. The song is about the weirdness of his parents letting him play with a symbol of slavery etc ... )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HLM4NK1qZM

An interview ...

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/627/suitable-for-children?act=1#play

Dukes of Hazzard ...



For example, the title "Generally" is a play on "General Lee"

That needs some explaining, but makes much sense once put in context ...

Dogen would be the more wild babies under the sea!.

Okay.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Jundo]

Actually, please bear with me. I changed rap song.

This is the one I was looking for first, a rap song I heard about by an African American regarding his childhood playing with "Dukes of Hazzard" toys (an American TV show way back ...

I reworked my original post above on Koan Rap a bit to reflect this.

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?15746-Mu&p=211529&viewfull=1#post211529

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Eishuu]

Thanks so much for the explanation Jundo. I think we get it drilled into us in the West that intellectual knowledge is everything - the whole 'I think therefore I am' business. Good to be reminded about other kinds of knowing. Great tracks!

Gassho
Lucy
ST/LAH