403. ZEN REMARKS

 403. The Zen novice is directed to go straight on a narrow mountain path with ninety-nine curves. Notice that the narrow winding path is a mountain path. Might this be significant? 

402. ZEN REMARKS

 402. Koan: 'Inorder to be a worthy Zen student I must go straight on a narrow mountain path with ninety-nine curves'. Like with so many Zen koans this one demands that the student do the  (seemingly) impossible. The central point of the koan would have the student 'go straight' on a narrow winding mountain path. Can this be done? If so, how?

401. ZEN REMARKS

 401. In the vast wide world of Master Unmon, is there room for Bodhidharma? If so, where?

400. ZEN REMARKS

 400. Bodhidharma is a key figure in the Zen Buddhist tradition in that he is credited with transmitting Dhyana Buddhism from India to China where it was translated into C'han. Contemporary scholarship has raised questions about the historicity of Bodhidharma and his pivotal role linking Dhyana and C'han. Should it be demonstrated that Bodhidharma is a fictional character, how would this affect your practice of Zen? 

399. ZEN REMARKS

 399. Do you find yourself standing between an outer world and an inner world? If so, on what do you stand? 

398. ZEN REMARKS

 398. Clearly see that 'all five skandhas are empty' and realize for yourself 'how vast and wide the world is'. 

397. ZEN REMARKS

 397. My world, your world, the world -- are they the same or different? 

396. ZEN REMARKS

 396. Suppose you stand at a window of your house and gaze out upon the world. Is it simply out there?  Or does it press in upon you and, perhaps, beyond you? And now where are you, both in relation to yourself and the world? 

395. ZEN REMARKS

 395. Do you stand at a window in your room and survey the world vast and wide spread out before you? Is that world simply the object of an act of spontaneous extroversion? Is your relation to the vast wide world one of subject to object? Is the world -- your world -- vast and wide as it is, limited to what you can see, hear, taste, touch and smell?

394. ZEN REMARKS

 394. From what vantage point do you look out and see that the world is vast and wide? 

393. ZEN REMARKS

 393. Master Unmon said, 'See how vast and wide the world is! Why do you put on your seven-piece robe at the sound of the bell?' Is the master referring to the world of your ordinary everyday experience or does he have something else in mind?

392. ZEN REMARKS

392. Master  Gettan said to a monk: 'Keichu made a cart with a hundred wheels. If he removed the wheels and the axles, what would he make clear about the cart?' 

     A good koan to become intimate with in this time of pandemic. 

391. ZEN REMARKS

391. An old Chinese master put the question, 'Why has the foreigner from the West no beard?' Surely an odd question given that 'the foreigner from the West', that is, Bodhidharma, is always depicted with a big bushy beard. What is going on here? 

390. ZEN REMARKS

390. Thirty of us in a twenty-one day lockdown in a mountain zendo: time and opportunity to become ever more intimate with that mystery in which we live and move and have our being. 

389. ZEN REMARKS

389. Some questions to ponder in the silence and solitude of a zendo deep in the mountains: What is your calling in life? Are you aware of being called? Alternatively, are you pursuing a project of your own devising? What is life asking of you? What are you asking  (demanding?) of life?

388. ZEN REMARKS

388. Settle into the stillness of your silent sitting. Follow your breath down into your hara. Just be in this breathing moment and the sheer wonder of it. 

387. ZEN REMARKS

387. Sitting straight, silent, still. Be one with this sitting. Be fully aware of just this moment of silent sitting. 

386. ZEN REMARKS

386. The ordinary character of the Ordinary Heart-Mind involves nothing extraordinary, and this is so even for monastics like Nansen and Joshu. Rinzai, the great ninth century master, was at pains to spell this out for his monks, when he said to them: 'O Brethren in the Way, you must know that there is in the reality of Buddhism nothing extraordinary for you to perform. You just live as usual  . . . attending to your natural wants, putting on clothes, eating meals and lying down if you feel tired'.

385. ZEN REMARKS

385. Without enlightenment-realization ordinary mind is deluded mind. As the saying goes, 'before enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; with enlightenment, mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers; after enlightenment, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers'.

384. ZEN REMARKS

384. Asked 'What is the Way?' Master Nansen replies very succinctly, 'Ordinary Mind is the Way'. If Joshu was as surprised and puzzled as perhaps many of us are by this answer, he does not show it for he straightaway asks another question about searching for this 'Ordinary Mind'. But unlike the young Joshu we might need to take some time to puzzle over what is meant by 'Ordinary Mind'.

383. ZEN REMARKS

383. Case 19 of the Mumonkan tells the story of an encounter between a young Joshu and his master Nansen. Not long after entering the monastery in his late teens Joshu goes to his master with what is surely a most important opening question for someone new to the monastic life and the practice of Zen. And so he asks, 'What is the Way?' It is a very serious question and akin to the question a certain young man put to Jesus, saying, 'What must I do to gain eternal life?' The English expression 'the Way' translates the Chinese Tao, which entered the Zen lexicon from Taoism. The Taoist vocabulary was an important source for the acculturation of Dhyana Buddhism brought to China from India by Bodhidharma early in the sixth century CE. But it has a wider reference. The early believers in Jesus were called 'followers of the Way'. So, what is the Way?

382. ZEN REMARKS

382. The second of the FOUR GREAT VOWS goes like this: 'Though delusive passions and thoughts rise endlessly, I vow to turn them around'. Our question is: are all thoughts delusive?

381. ZEN REMARKS

381. A thoughtless remark is the demonstration of a lack of something that belongs to what is properly human. The quality of being thoughtful is rightly prized. So what are we to make of directives that would have us cut off the mind road by sweeping away thoughts?