409. ZEN REMARKS

409. The account of Bodhidharma's audience with the Chinese emperor in 520 C.E. clearly illustrates how the teaching of the Dhyana master from India differs from that of the Buddhism that had preceded him to China by several hundred years. 'What are my merits?' 'None whatever!' 'What is the highest teaching?' 'Vast emptiness, nothing sacred.' 'Who are you?' 'I don't know.' To question the historicity of Bodhidharma's encounter with the emperor is to miss the point of this story by a thousand miles.

408. ZEN REMARKS

408.'At these words the monk gained insight.' And yet we are so often told that the Way is beyond words. Here we need to distinguish between live words and dead words. But how do we distinguish?

407. ZEN REMARKS

 407. At Bodhizendo, koans are presented in English. So practitioners work with koans that have been translated from Chinese to Japanese to Enghish. And translations, being what they are, tend to differ. Take, for example, the koan 'Nansen kills a cat'. In one version it says that he found his monks quarreling over a cat. Other versions have them debating, disputing, arguing. Does it make any difference to our entry into this koan if we see the monks quarreling or arguing or debating? 

406. ZEN REMARKS

 406. MASTER GEN-UN-KEN ( DARK CLOUD ) 

Head and shoulders it stands 

-- Mount Perumalmalai --

above the hills and mountains 

that cluster at its feet. 

Atop this mountain there rests 

-- in solemn stillness --

a Dark Cloud that embraces 

all who would climb its peak. 

Who knows whence it comes 

-- or whither it blows --

the Wind that shapes and moves 

this Dark ( Perumalmalai ) Cloud? 

(For AMA Samy's 85th birthday)

405. ZEN REMARKS

 405. When directed in a koan to 'put out the fire', I must ask myself what does 'put out' mean, that is, how is it used in the grammar of this language game. And again, mind the gap.

404. ZEN REMARKS

 404. Does the Master demand the impossible when he tells me 'Put out that fire a thousand miles away!' Not if I am mindful of the nature of 'the gap'.

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?