What is the meaning of Mu

[JohnsonCM]

Re: What is the meaning of Mu

Thank you for your responses Jundo and Seiryu, but I don't know that intellectual reflection or curiosity is a denial of experience. I have a cold shower every morning and the first hit of the cold water on the skin is a pretty basic experience. To reflect on whether it would be better to turn on the water heater is not a denial of that. It is a form of intellectualizing nonetheless, though based on an experience that is not itself a cognitive one.

To say that we'll only know what Mu is by experiencing it is a bit like saying we'll only know what God's presence is like by having an experience of it. But how do we know if we've experienced it if we don't know what it is?

Being told to stop thinking and just smell the roses is something I've come across in other Buddhist forums, and maybe it's the best advice. I'm not so naive as to think I can think my way to enlightenment. However, could it be said that in Zen we must leave our brains at the door of the Zendo? If so, why are there so many books clarifying what Zen is all about? And why Koans, which, even if they're to be approached from a perspective of Mu, are then clarified in terms of a systematic Zen philosophy?

I have just had a book added to my Kindle called Realizing Genjokoan. On the very first page, the author says: "An old Zen slogan denigrates dependence on words and letters, instead emphasizing direct pointing to mind and awareness. So it is ironic that Zen has produced extensive libraries of writings, often composed of commentaries on previous writings like this one." Well, it may be ironic, but it's perfectly natural. Once you start experiencing things, especially the movements of the "mind", then you're going to start doing things "up in your head".

Metta thoughts to you
Adrian

Essentially, this is the great quandary. It isn't that intellectualizing is a denial of experience but rather that the need to intellectualize is let go of, allowed to go on it's way and what we are left with is the MU! of the koan. We all start off much like children, as mentioned above, first we get into the water, because we trust in those around us to help us if we need it, and when we are young we purely enjoy the feeling of the water. We loose our sense of where the water ends and we begin, and simply ARE the great time in the water ourselves. Only when we get older, and more mired in the maze of ideas that demands that we have a meaning to every single thing in our lives, do we try to figure out the water, its depth, its qualities, its make up. You are right, you will start doing things up in your head, but with Zen you are more likely to remember that it is up in your head and not out in the world.

[ChrisA]

Re: What is the meaning of Mu

Somewhere I read a take on the "Mu" koan that supports Jundo's point about language, philosophizing and logic -- namely, that the "Mu" was not a response to the content of the question but to the act of the questioning. So, "Mu" translates roughly into a sort of katsu-esque "Wrong question, idiot!"

That's how I see it, too, Chris.

Not sure that's how I see it, I should add. Not sure I see it. :wink:

[Adrian]

Re: What is the meaning of Mu

Essentially, this is the great quandary. It isn't that intellectualizing is a denial of experience but rather that the need to intellectualize is let go of, allowed to go on it's way and what we are left with is the MU! of the koan. We all start off much like children, as mentioned above, first we get into the water, because we trust in those around us to help us if we need it, and when we are young we purely enjoy the feeling of the water. We loose our sense of where the water ends and we begin, and simply ARE the great time in the water ourselves. Only when we get older, and more mired in the maze of ideas that demands that we have a meaning to every single thing in our lives, do we try to figure out the water, its depth, its qualities, its make up. You are right, you will start doing things up in your head, but with Zen you are more likely to remember that it is up in your head and not out in the world.

Thank you, Heitetsu, and thanks to Chris A, too, for reminding me that how we "see things" is perhaps always tentative. Philosophically I'm never sure either, but it seems that way at the time.

Perhaps I'm getting the idea about Mu, if that's possible. Taigu's video was a knockout, and everyone's comments were helpful, even when not immediately welcome 8). In Thailand, people often say "Don't think about it" or "You think too much", but it strikes me as a reflection of the average person's social/political powerlessness in this country rather than a plea to free oneself from concepts. Perhaps I react a little for that reason.

Robert Aitken's book is really very good, I think, and as I got further into it, with our online sangha's comments in mind I felt more comfortable with his frequent reference to Mu. I find myself saying it to my wife now. :lol: Have I internalized it? I haven't actually "Mu'd" at her yet, though.

A bit more about the Aitken book while I'm here... I can see why it was chosen for people preparing for Jukai. It's the only book on ethics that I can think of that I literally haven't been able to put down. Not that I read it in one sitting, but I'd tell myself that I'd read to the end of the chapter and then do something else, but when I got there, something on the next page would attract my interest and I'd read on. Chapter 18 "The Morning Star" was captivating. He writes beautifully. Thank you Jundo for drawing the book to my attention (in the thread on Jukai).

[ChrisA]

Re: What is the meaning of Mu

One thought I had following some discussion on "Mu" elsewhere: the Mu koan is, itself, about the teacher/student relationship, and several people have urged that it be studied only in that context (that it be, in effect, assigned by teacher to student). The more I read that koan, the more convinced I am that such urging is appropriate -- for me at least!

[Jundo]

Re: What is the meaning of Mu

One thought I had following some discussion on "Mu" elsewhere: the Mu koan is, itself, about the teacher/student relationship, and several people have urged that it be studied only in that context (that it be, in effect, assigned by teacher to student). The more I read that koan, the more convinced I am that such urging is appropriate -- for me at least!

Hi Chris,

Such talk of a "Koan being assigned" and only to be bit into in a teacher/student relationship may be more of the flavor of Koan-Zazen and Rinzai style practice.

Here, in Dogen's world, the Koans are living things which ... like all of life, and all the Buddhist writings and teachings ... are available anywhere and always. What is more, the Koans are constantly changing, much as how a song or poem that one knows by heart, like one's own hand, will completely seem to change in depth or meaning at different times in life.

I am thinking about how, once we pass through our current book club selection, Zen Seeds, our next book will be one of the main Koan collections cherished in Soto Zen, and we will dance with those in our Soto-ish style.

Gassho, J

[Jundo]

Re: What is the meaning of Mu

This morning, I happened to come across on lovely little comment by Shishin Wick on the Koan of "advancing a step from the 100 foot pole" ... a Koan very much related to the MU we are chewing on here.

Often it is said that one is to push hard on something like MU, jumping off into the void, thus into KENSHO or some such to TRUTH! That is one way. But Shishin reminds us that TRUTH is all around ...

[This saying] is encouraging us to take a step forward, from wherever we may be. Each one of us is stranded on a hundred-foot pole. We may have climbed up for the view or we may have fallen to it from another perch. No matter where we are in our Zen practice or our life we're always standing on top of a hundred-foot pole. But we must not rest there. We must step forward into the unknown void in order to experience the boundless life. ...

... That hundred foot pole can be any precipice, any difficulty. And when you do step forward, where are you? Are you on top of another hundred-foot pole? ...

... Just keep going forward step-by-step from the top of the hundred-foot pole.

From Shishin Wick's comments on the Book of Serenity
(the book I am talking with Taigu about as our next book selection)

Which I take to mean that pivot points and opportunities for practice never end ... endlessly. MU is always dancing around and through and as us ... whether known or not.

Gassho, J

[Fuken]

Re: What is the meaning of Mu

Ask the dog.

I like this responce Rev, One thing I noticed when researching this Koan is that the chinese pronounciation of "MU" is "WU" wich sounds a bit like "Woo." In some parts of south east asia, when people imitate a dog barking, it sounds much like "Woo, Woo, Woo!"

[ChrisA]

Re: What is the meaning of Mu

Tintin's dog Snowy cries "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Perhaps that means, "Stop! Shut up! Sit down!" in Belgian dogspeak. :wink: