Working in the Garden with Rinzai and Obaku

The Reading:

One day all the monks were out working.  Rinzai had followed Obaku out, and the latter looking round, noticed Rinazi with empty hands, and thereupon asked him, "Where is your hoe?"  Rinzai replied, "Somebody has taken it away!"  Obaku said, "Come over here; I want to talk about it with you."  So Rinzai went up to him.  Obaku lifted up his hoe, and said, "Just this!  And all the creatures under heaven are unable to catch hold of it and hold it up!"  Rinazi snatched it from him and raised it aloft, exclaiming, "How is it that it is now in my hands?"  Obaku said, "One man had one a rare bit of work today," and went back to the temple.

R.H. Blyth, Mumonkan, page 43, a quote from "The Records of Rinzai"

Discussion:

Rinzai clearly wanted to get out of a day's work.  Obaku showed him!  Tricked into taking the hoe, Rinzai will now have to put in a day's work.  Ha!

Rinzai answers Joshu

The Reading:

Rinzai came after Joshua, considered lineally, but Joshu nevertheless went to see him.  Rinzai was washing his feet.  Joshu asked him, "What is the meaning of Daruma's coming from the West?" that is, what is the essence of Buddhism?  This is the question solved by Rinzai when beaten by his master Obaku, and Joshu probably asked it ironically.  Glaring at Joshu, Rinazi answered him, "At the moment I am washing my feet!"  Joshu leaned forward with the appearance of not hearing what Rinzai had said.  Rinzai exclaimed, "Do you want a second ladle of dirty water poured over you?" and Joshu went off.

-Mumonkan, R.H. Blyth, Case I

Discussion:

Joshu went to see everyone.  He was like a Christmas fruitcake that sends himself back and forth.  At first you are glad to receive him, but then you open the wrapping and find out what you have.

Enlightenment is a Circle

The Reading:
     The circle, enso, is a symbol used in Zen for enlightenment, as it is both bounded and boundless.  The 3rd Patriarch, Sosan, says in the Shinjinmei:

"The circle is like the Great Emptiness,

Nothing lacking, nothing too much".

Blyth's commentary on Amban's 49th case, R.H. Blyth, Mumonkan

Discussion:
     Most people think it means without end or beginning.  It also means bounded, zero, nothing much.  If you can grasp both ends of the circle, it is infinite!  If you can't, give up your study of Zen and take up geometry.

Mumon's Warnings

The Reading:

Mumon's Warnings
1.  To follow the compass and keep to the rule is to tie oneself without rope.
3.  To unify and pacify the mind is quietism, and false Zen.

-Mumonkan, R.H. Blyth

Discussion:

Mumon isn't the only one to warn against mindlessness, or emptiness, as it relates to Zen.  This is not to say that meditation is not useful, but it is not Zen.  It is a kind of food, but not the only food, and should not be confused with the purpose of life or the essence of Zen.  Meditation is an understandable goal, and as such is often clung onto like wreckage by sailors who have not the courage to endure the horrors of the sea.

Zen is not a meal, it is more like drowning.

Mumon's Verse for Three Barriers

The Reading:

THE VERSE


One thought fills immensity
To see Eternity in an hour
If we see through this thought
We see through the thinker of it.

-Case 47, Mumonkan, R.H. Blyth

Discussion:

This is one of my favorite versus because there is a certain smoothness and complex playfulness.  Mumon show his true hand: he's a poet and a magician, not really a teacher at all- unless that is what teachers are.

The Central Problems of Life

The Reading:

THE CASE
     Tosotsu made three barriers, asking the monks:  "Getting rid of your illusions and penetrating into the truth is done by seeing into your nature.  At this moment, where is your nature?"  
     "When you realize what you nature is, you are free from life, free from death.  When the light of your eyes is falling, how can you be free from them?"
     "If you have freed yourself from life and death, you know where you are going.  When the Four Elements separate, where are you off to?"

-Case 47, Mumonkan, R.H. Blyth

The Discussion:

Every religion offers something.  Ultimate Truth, an afterlife, even magical powers.  These offers are really bribes, because religions cannot offer anything in reality.  Zen offers nothing.  A unpleasant person who achieves enlightenment is still unpleasant, an ugly person still ugly, a dying man is still dying.  When you come to the Gateless Gate, there is no way forward, there is no way back.  How can you pass through it?

The Staff

The Reading:

THE CASE
Basho once said, "If you have a staff, I will give you one.  If you have no staff I will take it from you."

Case 44, Mumonkan, R.H. Blyth

Discussion:

Blyth notes that Daii Motetsu (9th descendant of Rinzai) disagreed with Basho, and said he thought it should be 'have a stick - take it, don't have a stick - give it'.  I obviously don't see as clearly as Daii Motetsu, for I know that he is wrong.  You cannot give a stick to a man who does have one.  Bah.

Whoever this Basho was, I salute him.  What a wind bag!

See the thinker

The Reading:

THE VERSE
One thought fills immensity;
To see eternity in an hour.
If we see through this thought,
We see through the thinker of it.




The Discussion:

On a side note, what is the difference between the thought and the thinker who thinks it?  What is the difference between who you are, and all the things that make the what you are at any point in time?  Every day is your birthday.

He's out!

From over at zenguide.com, one of the funniest things of all time.  I have been laughing at this on and off for days now, occasionally throwing my hands up in the air like I'm calling a field goal and yelling, "He's out!".  Everyone ignores me.

     When Yang-shan Hui-chi (807-883), as a young monk, paid a visit to the Ch'an master Hsing-k'ung, there was a monk who asked Hsing-k'ung: What is the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West?

     Hsing-k'ung replied: -Suppose there is a man in a thousand foot deep well, if you could get him out without using an inch of rope, then I would tell you the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West.

     The monk said: -Recently the priest Ch'ang of Hunam was talking in this way or that for people, too.

     Hsing-k'ung then called Yang-shan: Novice, take this corpse out of here.

     Later, Yang-shan took this up to Tan-yuan and asked: Sir, how could you get that man out of the well?

     Tan-yuan said: Idiot! Who is in the well?

     Yang-shan did not understand. Later he asked Kuei-shan the same question.

      Kuei-shan immediately called out [Yang-shan's name]: Hui-chi!

      Yang-shan responded: Yes!

      Kuei-shan said: He's out!

     At this, Yang-shan was greatly awakened. He said: At Tan-yuan I got the essence; at Kuei-shan I got the function. 

This is hysterically funny.  I'm amazed that anyone could be enlightened by it, it's so vaudeville.  Then again, I'm amazed that anyone ever gets enlightened.  Nose twisting.  Slapping.  Punch lines.  Zen is ridiculous.  But then, so is suffering, right?  You get that, right?  Ha!

He's out!