KOAN INQUIRY TOGETHER, TOMORROW
SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 10:00 AM to NOON
Zhaozhou’s Three Turning Words
A mud buddha can’t cross through water,
A gold buddha can’t cross through a furnace.
A wooden buddha can’t cross through fire.
Friends,
One of the things I love about having a life inhabited by koans, as companions (and not infrequently as crowbars, hammers and tongs) both constant and occasional, is that their ways of releasing me from the oppressive thrall of my assumptions and off-repeated stories are often so direct. They seem to ask the exact question I need to ask, or say the exact thing…but ask it, say it to my heart-mind, to that which is even in my fingers and toes, to my imagination.
So when I listen this way, listen with the whole of my imagination, body and soul, I get to just see what happens! And that, right there, is a freedom.
This koan reminded me of a couple of others, so they are coming along for Saturday’s meditation and conversation.I bring this first one at the risk of turning the koan into a lesson, which is not so interesting. But If we don’t go there, if we imagine our way into both koans, then what happens?
An old lady of the Pure Land faith was walking along the road when she met a Zen master, who said, “On your way to the Pure Land, eh, Granny?”
She nodded.
“Holy Amitabha’s there, waiting for you, I expect.”
She shook her head.
“Not there? The Buddha’s not in his Pure Land? Where is he then?”
She tapped twice over her heart and went on her way.
Note:
Yuanwu’s commentary on Zhaozhou’s three turning words begins: “After Zhaozhou spoke these turning words, he said at the end, ‘The real buddha sits within.’… Xuedou omitted this because he thought it was over-indulgent.”
What about that?
Chen’s Mountain Flowers
Chen was a laywoman who traveled around to visit different famous masters. After her realization, she wrote:
Up on the high slopes, I see only old woodcutters.
Everyone has the spirit of the knife and the axe.
How can they see the mountain flowers
reflected in the water—glorious, red?
See you tomorrow! If a poem or a dream grabs you (or if Guanyin sends one to you directly) and it wants to be shared, bring it along! And if you have thoughts about how these are in conversation with Yunmen’s comments last week, bring that, too.
Sarah