Today is the sixth day of our summer seven-day sesshin, the 12th of January 2023. And this morning, we're going to take up the topic of koans. Most of you are working on a koan. And we've had five days of not much talking about them, because Master Banchi, as far as can be ascertained, didn't use them, and didn't actually think all that highly of them. He called them old stories. And they are old stories.
Robert Aiken has called the koan collection, the folklore of Zen. Another way of looking at them would be as what Maya Angelou calls, deep talk. This is this is a phrase that comes from West Africa. And when a person may have may have done something wrong, or need to be reprimanded, they might be sat down and talked to by someone older. And then maybe a parable, or an axiom or a story might be be told to illustrate the point that's being made. And then somebody would say, take that as deep talk. And she she says, meaning that you will never find the answer, you can continue to go down deeper and deeper. So deep talk, talk that writing that touches our depths, our bottomless depths.
This isn't going to be some kind of exhaustive review, but more just touching on some aspects of koans. We'll look a little bit at their purpose. Also how they work and why master Hakuin might call them vile. But before we before we start, I'll share you with you a poem which was the which was the prompt for this talk. And it comes from the Book of Hours love poems to God by Reiner Amir Maria Rocha, in a translation by a neato barrows and Joanna Macy. Many of you may have heard of joint AC in the context of peace work, and read some of her really wonderful books. A need to Barrows as a poet, and a translator.
And this is the short poem. I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this one, but I give myself to it. I circle around God around the primordial tower. I've been searching. I've been circling for 1000s of years. And I still don't know. Am I a falcon, a storm or a great song? This this poem really struck me when I reread it earlier in the week. Rockers talking about about his own you could say his own life, his own spiritual life. But he could just as well have been talking about koan practice. He says, I may not complete this last one meaning circles that reach across the world. But I give myself to it. The notion that there could be things that we do in life that we won't complete. We won't finish this time around, and yet they're still worth doing. I circle around God around the primordial tower. I've been circling for 1000s of years and I still don't know. Am I a falcon, a storm or a great song? Again, this sense of of there being deep talk. Questions that we've been asking ourselves as you Human beings for 1000s of years
and the sense of the mystery that we ask the questions even if we may not receive any kind of answer in the conventional sense I still don't know Falcon a storm or song so it's the kind of background to our talk and we may come back to that at the end this time
so first what account koans for and putting it in the in the simplest way koans to open the mind and to get us to go beyond normal ways of thinking and and talking about things really to free us from our our fixed ideas about ourselves and our preoccupation with the self the self with it with a small is
years ago somebody shared me shared with me some
an excerpt of a tool by John Schuhmann who is a teacher in the tradition of Ramana Maharshi who's and their the central practice they do is Who am I so very akin to to what is this and he's talking about well how what what this question can address in the sense of our soul our felt false beliefs about who we are he says this we go through life with this deeply held absolutely invisible unconscious, unseeable false conviction that I am the story of me where I was born who my parents were what my background is what I have wanted what I have failed to want what I should want what I shouldn't want what I have been what I should be what I shouldn't be what I think what I do what I don't think what I don't do, what I want what I want, what I want, who I'm married to, who I'm not married to, what I love, what I despise, what I have learned, what I forgotten my worthlessness, my worthiness goes on I can find the other page I think that's probably enough anyway you get the idea. All of this all of this stuff this
obsession with ourselves
and the con Connect is a circuit breaker breaker to all of us.
From a historical point of view koans date back to the Tang Dynasty. The they are often records of encounters between between masters and disciples. Show you in the great Chinese 20th century Chan master said this about cones. He also refers to Huadong which we'll we'll get to in a minute. Up to the tongue which ended I think around 930 and Song dynasties, most adherence of the Chan sect became enlightened after hearing a word or sentence. The transmission from master to disciple did not conclude anything but the ceiling of mind by mind. And there was no fixed Dharma taught in the questions and answers the role played by a master was only to untie the bonds featuring his or her disciple. According to available circumstances, just like the giving an appropriate medicine for each particular ailment. In and after the Song Dynasty, human potentialities became duller, and the instructions given by the masters were not carried out by their disciples. For instance, when they were taught to lay down everything, and to not think of good or evil practices could not lay down anything and could not stop thinking of either good or evil. I think we can relate to that one. Under the circumstances the ancestors and masters were compelled to via to devise a poison against poison method by teaching their followers to inquire into a corner on or look into a water. The disciples were even taught to hold a meaningless swaddle as fairly as possible in their minds without losing their grip, even for the shortest possible moment, in the same way as a rat will stubbornly bite the board of a coffin at a fixed spot until it has made a hole. The aim of this method was to use a use a single thought to oppose an arrest myriad thoughts, because the Masters had no alternative. It was like an operation which became imperative when poison had been introduced into the body. The key here is the idea of using a single thought to oppose an arrest middle a myriad thoughts, or, or as he says earlier, to use poison against poison. Because cons are words. In Japan, if you're in a Zendo, where a lot of people are working on moods, and sometimes the teacher might go around the Zendo saying, tada witchy Tara machi. I heard this from from my teacher, Roshi Bowden that this is what Tongan Roshi used to do in Bangkok, eg when he was there. Tada Moochie means just the word Mo. Just the word Mu, using it like Manjushri sword to lop off whatever arises in the mind.
So he mentions in this explanation, the Conan The koan, and the huatou. The Conan is is the story of the encounter, particular encounter which contains some Dharma Heir meaning. And then the nub is that same meaning kind of boiled down into a single word or short phrase that form part of the con. So everybody is familiar with the knob Mu. And then the story that goes in its myths lies behind that. That knob is among us, ciao, Joe, Joshua, does even a dog have the Buddha nature and JoJo said, Mu. So, one works on Mu, this has been for least 200 years or so that just just the the nub the guado has given to the student. You don't repeat the whole case, but just boil it all down to the word mug. And this is another way in which a call on works is by being a kind of prism to which we can pour all our disparate questions and and give them a focus in the single word Mo.
People may be less familiar with the back the background, the Wydo that exists behind the the koan, what is this or what? I'll read a little bit here from a little article that appeared in tricycle in 2008 by Martine Batchelor, and she gives some very helpful points on working with this koan, which is very commonly taken up in Korea by Zen students as the first of their first con So what is this derives from an encounter between the Sixth Patriarch or ancestor? Why nung estates a 638 to 713? Common Era and a young monk why rang? Who became one of his foremost disciples and his full name is non UAE, who Iran, non Gaco in shape Japanese, and six ancestors, no and Japanese. So here's the here's the case that the mando slides behind the question, what is this? Why run into the room and bowed to way nung? Why Nana said where do you come from? Very common opening move on behalf of our Master is where were you coming from? spiritually? Where are you coming from? I came from Mountain song replied, why Iran? What is this? And how did it get here demanded why none? What is this? And how did it get here? Why Ron could not answer and remain speechless. He practiced for many years until he understood elsewhere. It says that he he sat with us for eight years. And you can imagine not just doing an occasional machine but intensive monastic practice for eight years. He went to see why nung to tell him about his breakthrough. Why nung asked, What is this? Why Ron replied, to say it as a thing misses the mark. But still it can be cultivated. So this is the con. And the question that comes out of what what is this is the central point, the huatou. Word is pretty much the same, I think brands the Asian in both Korean and Chinese. She says a little more, which I think is very helpful guidance for people working on what is this? The practice is very simple. Whether you are walking, standing, sitting or lying down, you ask repeatedly, what is this? What is this? You have to be careful not to slip into intellectual inquiry. For you are not looking for an intellectual answer. You are turning the light of inquiry back onto yourself. And your whole experience in this moment. That's very key point. Say it again, you are turning the light of inquiry back onto yourself and your whole experience in this moment. And doing this as continuously as you can. What is this thought? Well, you're not asking what is this thought sound sensation or external object? If you need to put it in a meaningful context, you are asking, what is it that is hearing feeling? Thinking? You're not asking what is the taste of the tea or the tea itself? You are asking what is it the taste the tea? What is it even before you taste the tea? And it made it be a real revelation to us working on this, just to realize perhaps for the first time that everything we do everything we experience has a mental component. We are never ever experiencing the world separate from our own right how could we the mind is the experiencer.
She continues, my own teacher master Pusan used to try to help us boy point by pointing out that the answer to the question was not an object because you could not describe it as long or short this or that color. It was not empty space either. Because empty space cannot speak. It was not the Buddha because we had not yet awakened to our Buddha nature. It was not the master of the body, the source of consciousness or any other designation, because those were mere words and not the actual experience. So you are left with questioning, you ask what is this? Because you do not know We ask What is this because we do not know.
We are not speculating with our mind we are trying to become one with the question. The most important part of the question is not the meaning of the words themselves, but the question we are asking unconditionally What is this? Without looking for an answer without expecting an answer, we are questioning for questioning sake. This is a practice of questioning, not of answering, we are trying to develop a sensation of openness of wonderment as we throw out the question What is this? We are opening ourselves to the moment there is no place we can rest. We are letting go of our need for knowledge and security and our body and mind themselves become a question.
Just to say a little bit more about what a koan, isn't isn't. This comes from Ruth fullest Zacky who was a pioneer of a Western Zen put together a big volume called Zen Das, which is was like a handbook for people in early years of Zen in America, because there's so little material around this was a whole compendium of information about masters cons, and she says this about koans. The koan is not a conundrum to be solved by a nimble wit. It is not a verbal psychiatric device for shocking the distant integrated ego of a student into some kind of stability. Nor, in my opinion, isn't ever a paradoxical statement, except to those who view it from outside. When the client has resolved, it is realized to be a simple and clear statement made from the state of consciousness, which it has helped to awaken, awaken. I'll say that last sentence again. When the client has resolved, it is realized to be a simple and clear statement made from the state of consciousness which has it has helped to awaken Stephen Batchelor set of cards that they are not merely a means to an end of awakening, but partake in the nature of that end. He says the practice of meditation is to allow mystery to shine through to acquaint ourselves while slowly and abruptly with what is our origin and color and culmination. Meditation and mystery are inseparable. We will will get quite stuck if we see koans as a means to an end. So in some way we're looking be then looking beyond the car to work come out of it, but the cons are itself the way wonderment is the way.
Now that
quote about what koans This is from John Tarrant, Roshi. koans are devices for entering what is real in life, they open a gate in the mind. The other side of the gate is the background behind everything we do the ideas and actions we thought of as important foreground stuff come to an end and an opening appears An opening appears
now a little bit about how koans work
this is from Master Hakuin who completely overhauled and revised the koan curriculum in Japanese Rinzai Zen he says this is the analogy that he sets up first, a person may not be ruined because he commits a single wrong act, that if he persists in wrongdoing, then eventually he will bring about his own downfall, whether he likes it or not. When that time comes, He will not be able to prevent it, even if he goes to all the gods of heaven and earth, and begs with tears in his eyes for their help. investigating a koan is like that, it isn't a question of choosing a call on scrutinizing at once, and penetrating it. If you work on it relentlessly, with unflagging devotion, you will penetrate it whether you want to or not. When that time comes, even the combined effort of all the devil kings in the 10 directions could not prevent it from happening, why they couldn't even glimpse what was going on. And there is nothing that could bring and there is nothing that could bring you such intense joy and satisfaction. So the food the same person who talks about those vile cons is here, saying that that seeing into one coming intimate with it. There's nothing to compare to the sense of joy and satisfaction in realization. So we'd be missing the point. If we thought con work was, was about cracking the con quickly. It's the repetition. It's the devotion that creates the conditions for the koans truth to be revealed to us, whereas Stephen Batchelor said, the process partakes of the end
so in in working on a con we, we we repeat it countless times. And that's our way of of keeping the question alive. Giving it momentum and in in doing that, where we're emptying out all those those those stories we're telling ourselves about, about who we are and what we are and who we should be and all of that. That gets to have less and less power over us. There are other traditions which which have analogous practices
there's various things in Christianity in Orthodox Christianity there's the the way of the pilgrim which is repeating a prayer until it's, it's filling one's whole being. And in the Sufi tradition, there's there's something called the broom of no
A little bit about this from
the preface, just a story from Rumi, the broom of no and interesting the word saying the word no here. Mu, of course, means no not. So the Sufis use the metaphor of the sword or broom of law. And this law is the first word of the profession of faith that Muslims say many times every day La ilaha illa, excuse my poor pronunciation, but the translation is, there is no God safeguard. There's no god other than God. And the first in the Arabic the first word of that profession of faith is law. And the Sufis say that this law is like a sword that cuts off everything that is not God. Or else it can be seen as a broom, which must clean the house or house before the beloved can take up residence in it.
So very big part of con practices, is emptying out forgetting yourself
this piece of a Rumi poem here about about this
forgetting the self. Again, some really people have probably heard this before it's it's it's around in many different forms. A man knocked at the door of his beloved, who are you trusted one. Thus? Asked the friend, he answered I, the friend said, Go away. There is no place for people raw and crude hear what then could cook the roar and rescue him? But separations fire and exiles flame? The poor man went to travel a whole year and burned and separation from his friend and he matured, was cooked and burned, returned and carefree approach the friends abode he walked around now in cautious fear, list from his lips and fitting words appear. His friend called out who was at my door, the answer, you dear you are at the door. He said, Come in now that you are all i There is no room in this house for two eyes. This this exile that's in this story where where the the lover is rejected by the beloved and has to go into exile. Sometimes working on a con can feel like that. We can feel alienated even. But that that exile is the cooking that is required. Before there can be this union when in the Sufi terms you're in of the union of the lover and the beloved. He says there's no room in this house for two eyes. He's talking here about the eye that the baby Buddha was talking about when he said above the heavens below the heavens, I alone on the honored one. That kind of
so last topic. Why did Master Hakuin talk about those vile cons, even when he is at the same time talking about the joy and satisfaction from seeing into a car is probably more than one answer to this. But one one of the things that surely, people will relate to is the vile because they require so much of us. And especially they demand that we go repeatedly into unknown territory and allow ourselves to be rattled to be shaken up. It's impossible to have business as usual when asking questions, these deep questions about who am I and what is this, the nature of things.
There's a writer, Greg laboy. I can't remember the name of the book that he wrote. But in it, he mentions the work of Ilya Prager, Jeanne, who is was a chemist, who researched what he called dissipative structures. And one of his theories or propositions was that friction is a fundamental property of nature, and nothing grows without it. He says, It is precisely the quality of fragility, the capacity for being shaken up, that is paradoxically the key to growth. Any structure whether or not molecular chemical, physical, social or psychological, that is influenced insulated from disturbance is also protected from change. So, it's uncomfortable and con work because we were being called upon to kind of strip off our insulation. That's why we can often come out of sesshin feeling quite delicate and have to take care of what we expose ourselves to. In those initial days when we were turned to our lives, the rest of our lives. Gregg Levoy adds. We must therefore be willing to get shaken up to submit ourselves to the dark blossoming of chaos, in order to reap the brisk blessings of growth. Much of this is axiomatic. Stress often prompts breakthroughs, crises point towards opportunities. Chaos isn't an integral part of the creative process. And protests are bits the cause of democracy. The whole science of immunisation is based on this wisdom we introduce a bit of chaos in order to prevent a lot of chaos. Just enough, but not too much. We shake up the system for the sake of helping it to evolve and become stronger. So we can understand clients like this while also recognizing that like much medicine it can be pretty bitter.
Right another aspect of the unpleasant nature of cons is, we've touched a little bit they're bottomless. They're they there's no no end to the to the plumbing of the depths. Think of a Gertrude Stein poem there ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never was an answer. There's the answer.
So we struggle we enter into not know buying and what we reveal is deeper not knowing
the the old masters recognize that this is
challenging to say the least one one master psuedo sich all in Japanese said how many times have I gone down for you into the blue dragons cave How many times have I descended Have I gone gone into into dark places
John Tarrant has written a whole book about this called
something something the dark, the light in the dark. He says, When we undertake undertake a great new thing and inner anxiety attends us. If we are true to our task, we become incompetent for all our learning is for the previous work in applicable now. It's as if we have to run the new way of seeing past the old problems. Whenever we have a series of very positive experiences, then we must look for the descent to come. It is not because there is some malign energy in the universe, it is more a rule of nature, darkness follows light, and in turn is followed by light, a field must lie fallow, Autumn must weather the stalks with a new corn to be planted, something in us must die before the new way can permeate our lives. A composer and musician described his experiences like this. Whenever I am composing a new piece, it is the same, I have to go through the agony of not being able to do it. After I've suffered for a while, the piece opens up. I keep trying to cut out the stage of incompetence and misery, but it can't be done. And I'm not sure that I would want to do it. The blackness is the door of the creative process. How much we'd like to be able to just cut to the chase and, and avoid this, this descending into place where we don't know.
In inner development, this is an infallible, infallible law, we regress breaking down the old rules before we take the next step. In any creative process, we have to go down into the darkness before we can rise up. When we are humble, we don't claim or want to be other than we are. We enter our pain as the door to the next landing of the stair
well,
our time is up. Just finish off with real cause. Prom again
I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one, but I give myself to it. I circle around God around the primordial tower. I've been circling for 1000s of years. And still, I don't know. Am I a falcon, a storm or a great song. We'll stop here and recite the four vows.
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