The talk you're about to hear is by Zen teacher, Sensei Amala Wrightson.
Today is August the 22nd 2023 and our teisho today is going to be on koans. Somebody was recently asking me about koans and how to work with them. And then shortly following that, I came across some very helpful comments on this topic by Guo Gu's 2016 book, "Passing Through the Gateless Barrier: Koan Practice for Real Life."
In this book, he gives translations and commentaries on all 48 cases of the Mumonkan and in his, in his introduction, he makes some very helpful points. And he's coming at the koans from a slightly different perspective and coming from a Chan Chinese branch of the practice.
Just a little bit before we go into his comments, a little bit of his his background. Guo Gu, also known as Dr. Jimmy Yu, is the founder of the Tallahassee Chan Center, and is also the guiding teacher of the Western Dharma Teachers Training Course at the Chan Meditation Center in New York, and the Dharma Drum lineage. He is one of late master Sheng Yen's senior and closest disciples and assisted him in leading intensive retreats throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Guo Gu has edited and translated a number of master Sheng Yen's books from in Chinese into English. Some of them we've we've read from in teisho. He's also a professor of Buddhism and East Asian religions at Florida State University in Tallahassee.
So much respect for Master Sheng Yen and the same for Guo Gu, as this very fine combination, and both of them have scholarship and deep practice experience. And this these both of these inform his introduction to the book, which is the first part that we're going to read from then we'll also look at how to he considered his the five prerequisites of koan practice.
So he says the gateless barrier, and then he gives both the Chinese and the Japanese names from woman Guan in Chinese and Mumonkan in Japanese. This book is a 13th century work that offers 48 Every entryways to wake up to your life. Haven't heard it put this way before and I think it's very useful to think of cons as ways to wake up to our life 48 entryways 48 gates, dharma gates. He goes on to say these entryways are presented as a barrier or check mount point at a gate like, like customs that we have to go through at the borders, countries.
These entryways are presented as a barrier or chip on a gate, they are short cases of life scenarios and show where you are stuck. This is so pointed in terms of when we work on these these stories is the ones that we get stuck on, where we have some strong idea or assumption, or opinion or belief that that blocks our understanding, and quizzes is very, very valuable to come up against these things. And the ones that we get the most stuck One of the most valuable thing The truth is, there is no gate or barrier. Where you feel stuck is precisely where you really realize awakening or freedom. In other words, all of life's ups and downs are opportunities to realize your true nature. This is why these checkpoints or entryways are gateless the main message of this work is clear, you are already free. But knowing this is not enough, you have to live it. Take everything you meet as an opportunity that can free you from bondage. This book shows you how. So you can see since these 48 kinds of 48 cases taken from Chan was in law, and turned into examples, just like a legal case is an example of precedent. But we need to restrict ourselves to these old stories, but they can help us to see the stories of the living coins that exist in our in our daily lives. See them point them out and, and pass through them. He goes on, if you allow the entryways or cases in this book to stand as mere stories from the distant past, unrelated to your life, then even if you read this book 100 times, you will still meet barriers everywhere you go. But if you take these cases as insights into aspects of your life, then they will come alive and you will wake up from the slumber of delusion, fixations and suffering, you will open up to wisdom. So to take them as teaching stories. Chan master woman Wei chi, whose whose name actually means open to wisdom and realize the gateless is the compiler of the gateless barrier. In 1228, he compiled and edited 48 cases of past Chan masters interactions with their students, many of which involve awakening experiences. These short insightful cases are called gourmands with Japanese cons. Each case is followed by a woman's own comments and poetic verses as pointers. The pointers show you how to approach and investigate each Golan in this book, global comments both on the the cases and also a woman's vs verses and commentaries.
Going on literally needs means public case. The term comes from Tang Dynasty civil court documents, referring to legal cases that must be passed or resolved by the magistrate. Chan masters draw on this judiciary method metaphor to refer to the cases of the certain past Chan masters and practitioners who have realized awakening and passed through the barrier of life. Just like magistrates, who you scrutinize and pass judgment on legal cases, Chan masters started to compile and comment on the short sayings and encounters of earlier practitioners. Their comments like the magistrates verdict evaluated the most important turning point or catalyst of those awakening experiences by giving readers pointers to insight, inspiring them to take up these cases as their own objects of contemplative investigation, these books became known as gumline collections.
Skipping forward a little bit, he goes on to bring out a point that is important to understand that these these collections these this these teaching stories, are really unlike anything else in in Buddhist writing. He says Ghanaians do not explain or reify any concepts. The form also reads more like transcripts of vivid encounters of life situations. They are not static and their meanings change according to whom reads them. Even though literary conventions were used in all Ghanaian collections, they cannot be reduced to mere literature, as if they were products of discursive exercises. In fact, they really are not meant to be read at all. They are instead meant to be engaged with an actualized. If you think of the nearest literary form to the gods, they're more akin to a script of a play, or the libretto of an opera, which you have to you have to interpret through your engagement with it. And, and not, whereas in a play, you might be playing this or that character. When working on a on a con, you have to play all the different parts into into all of them.
They do something to the readers and shape the lives of practitioners rather than just presenting some ideas. This dynamic performative dimension of GaNS goes beyond the limits of what a text is. There there takes to take us beyond texts. The gateless barrier is a great example. It became one of the most influential and beloved Golang collections, more so than any other. You mentioned, a couple of the other ones show your Roku and Hekiganroku. And I think it's true that this is the this move on Khan is more beloved and more cherished than these other books. It has something to do with Mu Juan and His way is pithy way of, of encapsulating the story, and providing pointers for us to work from. There, the other books are more elaborate, and, and literary you could even say, but the Mumonkan is really a pinnacle.
He goes on. Going on collections are much more than just books. As a method of spiritual comfort. Cultivation gourmands are unique in the whole of Buddhism, and in all the history of human development for that matter, there is really nothing like them. Before I explain how to use guns as methods of practice, it is important to keep in mind that they come from everyday life situations, and are meant to be engaged with thirst Gong hands, cannot be studied or learned or analyzed discursive explanations of an intelligent intellectual speculations about life and not life. None of the Gauguin's tell you what life is, they only put a spotlight on different aspects of life. The purpose is to show that all situations in life with all its ups and downs, are opportunities to awaken to your true nature. It's so liberating when we when we can approach are different different kinds of ups and downs with this attitude of, of recognizing that they are chances for us to wake up in some way, one way or another, chances to become more empty.
To many people, they seem like to be absurd upside down. This is because most people live their lives in an upside down way, bound by their own rational thinking concepts, and proliferation of notions about the world, which they take as the world that's going ons, turn us right side up and free us from our bondage. I think hear of that, that thing that the, the, the Buddha said in his awakening, we're told, he said wonder of wonders, all beings are endowed with wisdom and virtue, lacking nothing, but as only because their minds have been turned upside down by delusive thinking that they fail to perceive this. This is this is an ordinary way of viewing things upside down way, upside down in the sense that we I imagine that we are at the center of the universe in a particular kind of way. And because we are at the center of the universe, each of us but so is everybody else, and that we need to correct that that view that self partiality. Set things the right way up.
Thus Kongens turn us right side up, and free us from our own bondage. To engage in Golan practice, then, is to use the cases as a method to investigate your life and what it means to live according to your true nature. This engagement is called investigating Chan. And other ways way of saying the the whole the cons as like, as different facets of the great jewel of mind. We approach the same one jewel of mine from different directions. And these facets of open up to us when we shine the light of our attention on them. Investigating Chan, he says, investigation here does not mean thinking. Thinking is always dualistic and discriminatory and has the tendency to reify things as real and unchanging. ordinary people's thinking is a form of self gaffe grasping, thinking is by nature self referential. Because it is self referential and filtered through words and language, it also ratifies whatever people experiences out there. Real and separate, being deluded by the thinking process, a sense of self and other come comes into being. And people are forever alienated from their experience. We divide things into has and has not good and bad success and failure, enlightenment and delusion and all the other dualities we can, we can think of, and this this alienates us from from the world. We, this this alienation from our experience, this sense of being separate is where all human suffering comes from.
This is not to say that thoughts themselves are the problem. The problem is the tendency to take the concept of the thing to be the thing itself. Because of this delusion, attachment arises in suffering follows. To investigate Chan, is you is to use poison against poison. In other words, the poison of, of attachment or words or thoughts against, we use that against our words and thoughts. To use a good gun as a springboard to realize that which lives before words language and concepts, your true nature which can never be defined or ratified or grasped this this these kinds they seem to us paradoxical because they don't fit into our normal kind of logic. But is is John dilo. Laurie used to say there are no paradoxes in nature. We create a sense of paradox through our holding to onto particular views of things.
Therefore, whatever concept you come up with about a goal, none is just another concept. It's not freedom. Going ons are not puzzles or problems to be solved. There's nothing to solve the stories and going on defy logic and force the discriminating logical mind to become stuck turning words language and causal concepts on the Head and thereby shattering self grants that grasping, so practitioners can wake up to who they truly are. So the point is not to solve them, use the Gunung to dissolve dissolve your self referential referentiality or any fixation. It's another nice turn of phrase here not to solve the, the con but use it to dissolve, dissolve our own self Renfree and referentiality or fixations.
They do often feel like a kind of poison in that they're this this becoming stuck can can be very uncomfortable, but it's very much a part of the process.
So, how do we use the con to to dissolve self referentiality and fixations. Ghanaians koans use words and concepts to push words and concepts to the limits. This is what I mean by using poison against poison going ons provide an impossibility and impasse so that you are left with a great sense of not knowing impenetrability and wonderment. They give you nothing to hang on to. So all words, concepts and everything you've ever known about yourself or this and that falls away the koans are not for everybody because the majority of people don't like to go to their place of, of not knowing that getting right up close to one's sense of uncertainty. And yet, and yet the sense of not knowing is most precious. In Golan, Petrus is Gorgo speaking again, you must absorb yourself in the story of the Golan and be completely engulfed by the unresolvable impasse that presents. This experience of impenetrability wonderment and irresolvable impasse is known and charred and has the doubt sensation will yield Shang and Chinese. It is the great quest questioning mind. This is the whole point of the Golan method. When this indescribable wonderment engulfs you, and continues for a long time permeating every aspect of your life. It is possible that a catalyst such as a sound from the environment, or a form that you may see, will suddenly shatter this great ball of doubt sensation. Along with this shattering yourself a Chan attachment may suddenly drop away. When this happens. You see the world with new eyes, free from the filtration of self. Everything then comes to life for the first time. This awakening. This is awakening. But that doesn't mean practices complete. Your self grasping beginning may come back so you must continue to practice. This is something that people when they first come to us in may be surprised to hear, but there's a whole practice that happens after an initial awakening.
And that's where the koan collections come in. The postcentral practice mainly.
He goes on this doubt sensation or feeling of doubt is not a suspicion. On the contrary, it is established on the great conviction or faith that by using this method, you can apprehend your original true nature, your intrinsic freedom. This doubt is more like a sense of wonderment. A feeling of not knowing but if acutely wanting to know. In past English texts, they've talked about great doubt doubt, but I think this term that Guo Gu employs of wonderment is is much more helpful. It has a kind of openness about it, that saying doubt doesn't it feels kind of negative feeling of not knowing, but of acutely wanting to know. So, again, think of Buddhist practice as being transcending our desires, but here we go to the most fundamental desire of all the, the wanting to know who and what we are, then engaging it, employing it in the process, and not denying it, but, but bringing it into this this work. It is quite dynamic and alive, yet free from wandering thoughts and discursive thinking. The concentration developed through working with a gunman is unlike traditional concentration methods of single minus mindedness. This sense of wonderment or questioning mind is undivided, yet not stagnant, concentrated, yet engulfing, encompassing everything in all daily activities of life. It walks with us, it lies down with us, goes to sleep with us, it wakes up with us. During meditation, the sense of wonderment can get quite intense, reaching a point where words and language are completely dropped. In that state of non conceptual reality, the discriminating mind comes to a dead end and one remains open in wonderment. This is when the practitioner reaches a unified sense state of oneness with self referentiality Is that as weakest Chan masters call this the great death. Only when even this state of oneness is dropped, can the protection practitioner come back to life, this is called the great life to the Great Awakening. There are many ways to engage with the cases, it is often not necessary to reflect on the whole story of the going on. Each Conan has a critical turning point that has the potential to transform delusion into awakening, the critical point called the guado can be the focus of one's meditation, you can think of Eduardo as a condensed version of a Golan. So, if we take the example of the con Mu, the whole con is a monk once asked Master Joshu does even a dog have the Buddha Nature Joshua said mo or if he originally been in Chinese wool, which means Not or No. So, if we boil it all down, then it boils down to the word Mu. And so one one the instruction was given his to to take up this this knob, as the as the as the essence of the car, what is Mu
in the nirvana Sutra, it says that all beings have the Buddha nature. So why did did Joshu say no? This word Waldo, literally ritually literally means that which lies before words. So we use the word to see if we can't get beyond words. He says if words and concepts are the thorny vines that blind and delude you, then Wydo is the hatchet that cuts through them and frees you. This is the reason that the guns are gateless barriers that both obstruct and liberate. They are barriers obstacles only if you are stuck with deluded upside down thinking. In truth the obstacles are not obstacles, but all catalysts for awakening. To meditate on the Wydo is to investigate the essence of the Golan. It is not always so easy to generate the sense of wonderment when meditating on a goal go alone, because it can be quite long. It is there for after all easy for well protected practitioners to get caught up with all the ideas and words in the going on. Thus for practical reasons most Chan practitioners meditate just on the Wydo.
was on a little bit later on to talk about self in Chan Buddhism
and about more of the the difference between traditional Buddhist teaching and the the Khan curriculum and method. In the in the traditional Buddhist famed framework practice involves technical concepts that have specific meaning and certain methods must be cultivated sequentially. For example, one must first uphold precepts, then engage in meditation so as to generate wisdom. Chan Buddhism understands this linear scheme of the Buddhist path, articulated in early scriptures and treat as treatises as expedient means, or conventional truth. Chan Buddhism, however, inspired by certain Mahayana scriptures, and we've been reading them lately the Diamond Sutra is one of them, hearts, sutras and other articulates the Buddhist path from the perspective of ultimate truth or emptiness and non duality. From this perspective, all beings are already awakened. The path is the goal. Meditation is wisdom. Practice is like a baby trying to be a human being a baby is already a human being. While a baby might may not know how to walk or talk yet, that doesn't that deny the baby's humaneness? The true reality of all beings is imprint Trinsic freedom or awakening to illusion fixation and suffering are only the conditioned temporary reality of all beings. This means even though we you may be caught up with the fixations and challenges in life, these conditions do not define your true nature. This is the basic position of Chan not to be not to be defined by our difficulties nor for that matter by our achievements
to not pin ourselves down with high ideas about who and what we are. What then is the role of practice? Is it even necessary if we are already awakened? This was mastered Dobyns question why why do we have to practice when from the very beginning we're we're borders? Well, yes, we do have to practice. Gu mentions a story from the from the suttas. When the Buddha was asked metaphysical questions about the origin of the universe and so on, he would compare these questions to a person shot with an arrow asking what kind of wood with the arrow was the arrow made? From? Where did where did the bow come from? What was what were the feathers that were on the ends of the arrows and so forth. When what is most important is to remove the arrow and recover from the wound. This wound is the conditions of life, delusion, fixation, suffering, all the barriers we experience. Chan focuses on the most urgent matter. That is, there is in truth, no arrow, no shooter. This is what we chant In The Heart Sutra. No eye, nose, tongue, body, mind, color, sound, smell, taste, touch, what the mind takes hold of, or even act of sensing no ignorance nor end of it. Are all that comes of ignorance, no weathering, no death, no end of them.
delusion, fixation and suffering are inevitable. Yet what may seem like delusion, fixation and suffering is your greatest gift for transformation and liberation. This is not only taught in in Chan and Zen, but also in Vatra Jana Buddhism whether they say sometimes samsara is nirvana right whereas we suffer there as the clue to how to come out of suffering.
To practice is to design the shadows until you find the cause the self when the self suddenly vanishes, the shadows of delusion, fixation and suffering also vanish. How do you do this, engage with Eduardo or Golan to realize that which is before words and language, generate the sense of wonderment and not knowing.
If you can realize this truth of no self instantly, and if the power of your resolution realisation is strong enough, both the area arrow and the shooter vanish. Yet old habits run deep and take many forms, our illusory sense of self can come up with all kinds of stories and narratives and ideas that shape how we experience things. As long as there is a self you will feel this ease, anguish, disturb vents, and irritation. This is why genuine practice is necessary. And why we have many of these koans to employ in this way.
Just going to skip forward. There's more there's more gray material here. But I promised that I'd talk about these five reasons and prerequisites and I don't want to miss out on these. So we'll skip forward to one of the chapters on case number five and here he presents his his five Chan proven prerequisite requisites for working on Gong Gong and or huatou practice. And these are an expression expansion of the usual three of great doubt great faith and great determination. But he gives them an his own original twist and adds a couple which I think are very helpful and illuminating. These five prerequisites come from my own experience and what I have learned from my teacher, Mr. Sheng yen. The first is to have great conviction and faith. The point of the Golan or cricket critical phase method is to generate the great questioning or doubt. As discussed earlier, this does not mean suspiciousness. It means a sense of wanting to know the sense of wonderment about the most fundamental essential question of your being. This great questioning is founded on great conviction in the method in yourself and in the teacher. Faith in the method means to recognize that this unique Chan method has been passed down through generations, other practitioners have personally engaged with this method and penetrated through to awakening they have shattered through ignorance to wisdom. faith in yourself means to recognize I can do this. And I can do this not because I'm special but because all the conditioning of our fixations and delusions and problems are not an intrinsic part of who we are. These things are originally empty. We, from the beginning, Buddhists. The Buddha he says the word Buddha means to awake. Your original wakefulness is the wisdom of emptiness. Finally, you must have faith in the teacher just before going on to that about the wisdom of emptiness. This is this is
often something that people have trouble grasping. But it's it's very encouraging in the sense that we don't have to acquire anything from anywhere. We just have to let go What's in the way of this, this viable void this this wisdom of emptiness and just then he goes on to say finally you must have faith in the teacher the teacher in Chan has one sole task to help others to become awake there's an image of in Zen of the hen tapping on the egg and the chick picking on the on the shell from within and this this work together from both sides of the shell that we're in Casten
he says the teacher must have great skill and timing and the ability to see the workings of causes and conditions. Sometimes, these openings happen when the teacher says certain things I heard of a case recently with us somebody giving a talk head with her words had been a trigger for someone's can show because it can be a sound or something one sees or a sensation one story is of 18 bodhisattvas entering a tank a pool and on the feeling of the water against them they all submit simultaneously awaken any any sense organ may be the catalyst for this experience. Well, I'm afraid we've run out we'll have to finish finish up with these of other four prerequisites at another time. We'll wrap this up here now and finish up with the Four Vows.
All the things without number two liberate endless blind.
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