Month: August 2024

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Zen snippets

Here are a few favorite random snippets from Zen resources:

from Iron Flute.
14. Pai-Yun’s poem:
Where others dwell,
I do not dwell.
Where others go, 
I do not go.
This does not mean to refuse association with others;

I only want to make 
black and white distinct.
*****
from Gateless Gate.
19. “Everyday Life is the Path.”
Joshu asked Nansen: “What is the path?'”
Nansen said: “Everyday life is the path.”
Joshu asked: “Can it be studied?'”
Nansen said: “If you try to study it, you will be far away from it.”
Joshu asked: “If I do not study it, how can I know it is the path?”
Nansen said: “The path does not belong to the perception world, neither does it belong to the nonperception world. Cognition is a delusion and noncognition is senseless. If you want to reach the true path beyond doubt, place yourself in the same freedom as the sky. You name it neither good nor not-good.”
At these words Joshu was enlightened.
*****
[Added poem to 19. “Everyday Life is the Path.”]
In spring, hundreds of flowers;
in autumn, a harvest moon;
In the summer, a refreshing breeze;
in winter, snow will accompany you.
If useless things do not hang in your mind,
Any season is a good season for you.
*****
from Gateless Gate.
24. “Without Words, Without Silence.”
A monk asked Fuketsu: “Without speaking, without silence, how can you express the truth?”
Fuketsu observed: “I always remember springtime in southern China. The birds sing among innumerable
kinds of fragrant flowers.”
*****
from Iron Flute.
67. Genro:
The whole world is my garden.

Birds sing my song;

Winds blow as my breath;

The dancing of the monkey is mine;

The swimming fish expresses freedom;
The evening moon is reflected
In one thousand lakes,

Yet when the mountain hides the moon,
All images will be gone

With no shadow remaining on the water.
I love each flower representing spring
And each colorful leaf of autumn.
Welcome the happy transmigration!
*****
88. Yüeh-shan’s Lake.
Nyogen: “Zen monks like to dwell intimately with nature.
Most Chinese monasteries were built in the mountains or by a lake. Zen records many dialogues between teacher and monks concerning natural beauty, but there must also be many monks who never asked questions, simply allowing themselves to merge with nature. They are the real supporters of Zen — better than the chatterboxes with all their noise in an empty box.
*****
89. Hsüeh-fêng’s Wooden Ball.
Nyogen: When Yüan-wu gave a lecture on Hsüeh-tou’s selected koans and poems, he criticized one phrase after another, then published them all in book form under the title, Pi- yen-chi, or Blue Rock Collection. After his death, his disciple, Ta-hui, gathered all the publications together in front of the temple and made a bonfire of them. What the teacher builds in shape must be destroyed by the disciples in order to keep the teachings from becoming an empty shell. Western philosophers create their own theory, then followers continue to repair the outer structure until it no longer resembles the original. In Zen we say, “Kill Buddha and the patriarchs; only then can you give them eternal life.”
*****

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A passing recluse

An acquaintance of an acquaintance indicates that a relation, a man nearly forty years old, has passed away. This man was scorned by family, rejecting of society, and clearly suffered much trauma. He was autistic, reclusive, anxious, depressed, obsessive-compulsive, suffered diabetes and cardiac issues, dying of heart failure. He eked out a life dependent on disability funds, and lived in a basement.

His life presents the involuntary solitude born of psychological trauma, brought low by illness, not at all conscious or deliberate solitude. The basement, an inexpensive hovel sufficient for his circumspect needs, was reflective of his entire self. Yet he had enlisted himself as an organ donor, perhaps because he despised his body, or because he played a final trick on the world, showing them that he was capable of “caring” wherein “they” were not. No one knows.

One cannot help but note an analogy to the famous basement dwellers of recent literature: Dostoyevsky’s anonymous denizen of Underground, and Ellison’s hapless Invisible Man. In literature, the subtleties of psychology are not over-analyzed. We are presented with a seamless lot of syndromes and maladies, to be accepted as a literary package, with the off-goal of entertainment, even as the authors hope for deeper appreciation of their protagonists and how they might reflect issues of the day.

But in the case of the afore-mentioned acquaintance, there is no reflecting or speculating. He is known-of and gone in the same instance. One might have imagined conversing with such a person (though it is said that he insulted anyone who came too close). How far away from the imagined cave-dwelling historical hermits, for example, Paul of Thebes, who would receive others and converse with them, if only to chide them about their tolerance of their worldly milieu. We have no right to inquire too much, but with our literary protagonists we can only nod and think that, yes, given their premises, they were bound to turn out the way that they did. Can we say as much to justify ourselves?