A few questions

[Madrone]

Re: A few questions

Thank you everybody. This is all very helpful. I think I will try to be more aware of my analytic responses and how they themselves "divide the cat".

But why did Joshu put his sandals on his head?

[Omoi Otoshi]

Re: A few questions

Thank you everybody. This is all very helpful. I think I will try to be more aware of my analytic responses and how they themselves "divide the cat".

Very well put, "being more aware of my analytic responses"! Thank you. I don't think most of us could or should so easily abandon our analytical thinking. It is a part of us. Love it, use it. But be aware of it and don't confuse your mental constructions with "reality" or "the truth". Our analytical thinking will only take us to the edge of the cliff. To progress from there we have to abandon all thought and jump. In other words, it will take us to the gateless gate, but it won't help us pass through it. It may imprison us under a silver mountain, inside iron walls. Keep us from realizing we are the silver mountain, the iron wall. I will take your words to heart.

But why did Joshu put his sandals on his head?

Yes, why did he? :lol:
I love this story. Almost every time I read it a new meaning shows up! It seems to have so many layers and I suspect I am only scraping on the surface. In no way have I truly realized this Koan. Anyway, I'd like to share a few thoughts. Maybe it will help or maybe not. With Koans, there are different dimensions of understanding. You can call them intellectual understandning, insight and realization ("making real") if you want. I believe words may on rare occations help with the insight, if we are ready for it, but they don't make it real.

This story was not written for your or me. It was written for chinese monks a long, long time ago. As modern westerners we get very confused over someone putting their sandals on their head. It seems absurd. Some people say this is a good thing, but I'm not so sure. Why muddle the message more than necessary? If I remember correctly, Aitken Roshi said putting the shoes on one's head was a gesture of mourning in old China. If so, this seemingly absurd action makes much more sense. There is no one word that could have saved the cat, so the monks didn't say anything. What Joshu did was act without thinking. Pure, raw action instead of dualistic thought. Acting out of the absolute instead of the relative. Out of compassion. Did he save the cat? No. Yet, he did, didn't he? And all other sentinent beings too.

It also helps to imagine yourself as all the different persons in the Koan. Play the role of the monks, then then Nansen, then Joshu, then the monks again etc. To me, it's not so important if Nansen killed the cat or not. It's a story. It's supposed to chock us. Turn our views upside down to show us their emptiness. Was Nansen good or bad? Both good and bad? Neither good nor bad? As Rev Jundo says, did he divide the cat in two, or did he cut it into One? What was divided and what was made whole and who was doing it?

Sure, Nansen could have smashed the most precious Buddha statue in the temple instead, but then it would have been a different Koan, a more shallow one in my opinion. It would not have been about life and death anymore, another meaning of this Koan. Nor would it have been about Buddha nature anymore. Or the Bodhi mind and the Great Vehicle. Or compassion, judging, the precepts and so on.

Anyway, you have to find your own meaning of this Koan. And just sitting will help with that I suspect.

/Pontus

[Jundo]

Re: A few questions

Not only that, but it is exactly because the mind wanders that we can practice. The mind wandering (and taking it back to 'here') IS perfect practice - the timeless satori stuff - that's just a momentary lapse into concentration practice - LOL!

As with all things I say, IMHO,

Chet

I would like to turn to the handy-dandy "sky and clouds" metaphor again .... with the light, clear, open, boundless shining sun and sky as Buddha Nature ... and the clouds as our little thoughts and emotions that may becloud our seeing that. (This metaphor of sky and clouds, by the way, is one of the "classic" metaphors of the Zen tradition)

Our way of Shikantaza is not about always having a mind 100% totally free of clouds, though sometimes that may be. Rather, sometimes we do and sometimes we don't ... clouds drift in, clouds drift out. Sometimes, the sky is all wide and blue and clear in all directions, without a cloud in the sky! That is good Zazen! Boundless, cloud free!

And sometimes (most times), there are clouds drifting through the sky ... but we do not latch onto them or stir them up ... just let them go. Shining blue peaks through the wide open spaces between the clouds. Moreover, the light of the sky can be seen to shine right through-and-through the clouds themselves ... so that clouds and sky are not seen as apart or in any conflict. The clouds are now illuminated and transformed from their darkness, the sun and blue shining right through each and all, and the sky Whole. It is not "cloud free", but the clouds are now encountered as having been free, light and clear all along! 8) That is good Zazen too ... maybe even more precious than an all clear sky!

Now, sometimes (in human darkness and ignorance), the sky is so cloudy, fogged and stormy, filled with rampant thoughts and emotions, that the clear blue is all hidden and bound in (still may happen to any of us some days, even long experienced sitters)! That is not good Zazen ... that is just ignorance, confused and cloudy bad Zazen! And so, we should let the clouds clear and blow away, returning to the spacious, shining blue as above.

However, even when the sky and sun are totally hidden ... not a patch of blue to see in the gray and stormy sky ... the sky and sun are still there even though we are blocked from seeing by the covering clouds. In fact, there is no bad Zazen ... even the bad Zazen.

More here:
"Right" Zazen and "Wrong" Zazen
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=2783

Gassho, J

[Taigu]

Re: A few questions

Hi Madrone,

About your third question. Indeed, the tendency is for most people to start with a very dense, tight, strong energized sitting which gently collapses as minutes go by

I gave a clumsy teaching about this very point during the winter retreat.

If you sit with this body-mind with the intention to achieve, it is going to be the full catastophe, the majestic crash, which is also OK :? :lol:

Allow things to be flexible, your hands feather like and glowing warm, the act of sitting a very natural process, filled with ease, quiet joy, softness.

Adjusting your posture as you say is a complete nonsense. Let gravity take you into the cushion, sitting bones into the cushion, sitting up is not a by product of body work, will, doing or correcting. What is it?

Live with this question and let go of all answers.

Observing small kids and animals is very inspiring too. Zazen is not a fixed state, it cannot be fathomed. As Dogen Zenji puts it one is caught by the still state. Forget it, and it is yours. Try to catch it, and it is already lost.

gassho


Taigu