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Zen koan meaning
Zen koan meaning







zen koan meaning
  1. ZEN KOAN MEANING HOW TO
  2. ZEN KOAN MEANING FREE
zen koan meaning

Any "can you prove your rationalist mettle and one box on this obfuscated newcomblike problem?" Any use of 'rationalist' without direct relation to utility maximisation or epistimic accuracy in a specific context. I say we've got more than enough 'buddah-nature' here already thanks. If I say "What a load of crap! This post conveys about as much insight as a Rorschach test!" then that means, more or less by definition, that I don't get it and am unenlightened, right? This is the most serious question of all. One warning: the fact that a problem is used as a source of contradiction does not mean that it doesn't actually have an answer. Eventually the complexity will be useful in dealing with other problems, ones with solutions we didn't see before. But if we keep struggling with the problem, even though we cannot expect to achieve anything, we build within ourselves ever more complex models, ways of seeing. Trying to understand, we usually perceive a contradiction and let the process terminate. Contradiction and apparent contradiction is a powerful tool for this purpose. The point of the koan isn't to find the 'right answer', the point of the koan is to struggle with it, and by struggling, develop one's own understanding. The real purpose, of course, was to exercise the body, to condition the muscles and strengthen the bones. Their actions would appear to be wasted nothing was done with them. What was being accomplished? Superficially, nothing at all. This morning I passed by a gym with a glass-walled front, and I saw within the building many people working at machines, moving weights back and forth. Joshu answers the question the monk didn't ask but should have - the question whose answer the monk is taking for granted in what he asks. I'll give you a hint: Joshu's reply isn't really an answer to the monk's question, it's a response induced by it. When you enter this Mu and there is no discontinuation, your attainment will be as a candle burning and illuminating the whole universe. Just concentrate your whole energy into this Mu, and do not allow any discontinuation.

ZEN KOAN MEANING HOW TO

I will tell you how to do this with this koan: He can enter any world as if it were his own playground.

ZEN KOAN MEANING FREE

If a Buddha stands in his way, he will cut him down if a patriach offers him any obstacle, he will kill him and he will be free in this way of birth and death. He is like a great warrior with a sharp sword. When he enters this condition his ego-shell is crushed and he can shake the heaven and move the earth. It is like a dumb man who has had a dream. As a fruit ripening in season, your subjectivity and objectivity naturally become one. Then your previous lesser knowledge disappears. If you really want to pass this barrier, you should feel like drinking a hot iron ball that you can neither swallor nor spit out. It is not nothingness, the opposite of existence. Do not believe it is the common negative symbol meaning nothing. If you want to pass this barrier, you must work through every bone in your body, through ever pore in your skin, filled with this question: What is Mu? and carry it day and night. Then you can work hand in hand with the whole line of patriachs. If you pass through it you will see Joshu face to face. You may ask: What is a barrier of a patriach? This one word, Mu, is it. If you do not pass the barrier of the patriachs or if your thinking road is not blocked, whatever you think, whatever you do, is like a tangling ghost. Enlightenment always comes after the road of thinking is blocked. To realize Zen one has to pass through the barrier of the patriachs. Take a look at Mumon's commentary for this koan: Shedding error is the point, not learning something new. Thirdly, the purpose of Zen teaching isn't to acquire new conceptual baggage, but to eliminate it not to generate Enlightenment, but to remove the false beliefs that preventing us from recognizing what we already possess. The relativist treats a paradox merely as interesting, perhaps amusing or even - dreadful thought - educational. If paradoxes bother you, that betrays your deep desire for absolutes. Paradox is a pointer telling you to look beyond it. They are examples, illustrations of the state of mind that the student is expected to internalize.

zen koan meaning

It is important to remember certain things: Firstly, koans are not meant to be puzzles, riddles, or intellectual games.

zen koan meaning

What does this koan mean? How can we find out for ourselves? It's the story of Joshu's Dog.Ī monk asked Joshu, a Chinese Zen master: `Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?' In the traditions of Zen in which koans are common teaching tools, it is common to use a particular story as a novice's first koan.









Zen koan meaning