243. ZEN REMARKS

243. The fifth of Dongshan's 'Five Degrees of the Phenomenon and the Real' is called 'Arriving within Together' or, in another version, 'Arriving at Concurrence'. It refers to going beyond the polarities of the phenomenal and the real. One might respond as follows:

At the end of the working day
I jostle with the best of them
in the peak-hour rush for a train.
At this hour everyone is intent on leaving the city,
not just for a quieter life
but to return home and sit at ease
at one's own kitchen table.

242. ZEN REMARKS

242. When he comes to speak of 'proceeding within phenomena',  Dongshan says it is 'like two crossed swords' where 'neither permits retreat'. Here the self must act in 'suchness', that is, must be totally immersed in the phenomenal world of action. See the following:

Looking right left and right again
an old fellow must keep his wits about him
when crossing to the other side
of a busy city street. 

241. ZEN REMARKS

241. What about Dongshan's 'Emerging within the universal'?

With neither road nor dust
nor emperor's word to avoid
the non poet offers these words
with no thought for eloquence.

240. ZEN REMARKS

240. Responding to Dongshan's 'The universal within the phenomenon':

With day breaking all about her
this old woman forgets being old, being woman
and sees in the ten thousand things her own true face
- no need for make-up now.

239. ZEN REMARKS

239. A verse for Dongshan's 'The phenomenon within the universal':

Meeting the other
faceless shapeless
in the pitch black of a moonless night -
no wonder there is no recognition.
And yet ... And yet ...

RINZAI'S GREAT ENLIGHTENMENT

'Rinzai's Great Enlightenment', teisho by Zen Master Carl Hooper.

See HERE 

238. ZEN REMARKS

238. What was Rinzai's great enlightenment? We are not told but it seems that he somehow realized that his master's teaching didn't amount to  very much! Perhaps he came to see that, as with Zen itself, there was nothing to it at all. 

237. ZEN REMARKS

237. Who is hot? Who is cold? I call to mind a Christian 'koan' that goes something like this: because you are neither hot nor cold I will begin to vomit you out of my mouth.

236. ZEN REMARKS

236. When Dongshan says, 'kill yourself with cold', he does not mean for us to take him literally. This saying of his has come down to us in the literary form of the koan. And koans bear on enlightened understanding and behaviour. Here we would do well to question ourselves about the identity of the self that is to be killed with cold. Furthermore, we can examine our attitude to suffering and whether we think we can escape it entirely. And if it can't be avoided or escaped, what then? Kill yourself with cold, with heat! 

235. ZEN REMARKS

235. Traveling from the summer heat of the Indian city of Tiruchirrapalli to the wintry nights of Australia's Northern Tablelands, this patch-robe mendicant calls to mind old Master Dongshan and his reply to the monk who asked about how he could avoid heat and cold. Dongshan said: 'When it's cold, kill yourself with cold. When it's hot, kill yourself with heat' (see Hekiganroku, Case 43). 

234. ZEN REMARKS

234. Zen and the art of traveling: abide where there is no abiding.

233. ZEN REMARKS

233. Coming. Going. Never astray.

232. ZEN REMARKS

232. Nothing gained. Everything lost. Where to now?