Tag: Prayer
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Blow Out the Candle
Tokusan was studying Zen under Ryutan. One night he came to Ryutan and asked many questions. The teacher said: `The night is getting old. Why don’t you retire?’
So Tukusan bowed and opened the screen to go out, observing: `It is very dark outside.’
Ryutan offered Tokusan a lighted candle to find his way. Just as Tokusan received it, Ryutan blew it out. At that moment the mind of Tokusan was opened.
`What have you attained?’ asked Ryutan.
`From now on,’ said Tokusan, `I will not doubt the teacher’s words.’
The next day Ryutan told the monks at his lecture: `I see one monk among you. His teeth are like the sword tree, his mouth is like the blood bowl. If you hit him hard with a big stick, he will not even so much as look back at you. Someday he will mount the highest peak and carry my teaching there.’
On that day, in front of the lecture hall, Tokusan burned to ashes his commentaries on the sutras. He said: `However abstruse the teachings are, in comparison with this enlightenment they are like a single hair to the great sky. However profound the complicated knowledge of the world, compared to this enlightenment it is like one drop of water to the great ocean.’ Then he left the monastry.
Mumon’s Comment: When Tokusan was in his own country he was not satisfied with Zen although he had heard about it. He thought: `Those Southern monks say they can teach Dharma outside of the sutras. They are all wrong. I must teach them.’ So he travelled south. He happened to stop near Ryutan’s monastery for refreshments. An old woman who was there asked him: `What are you carrying so heavily?’
Tokusan replied: `This is a commentary I have made on the Diamond Sutra after many years of work.’
The old woman said: `I read that sutra which says: “The past mind cannot be held, the present mind cannot be held.” You wish some tea and refreshments. Which mind do you propose to use for them?’
Tokusan was as though dumb. Finally he asked the woman: `Do you know of any good teacher around here?’
The old woman referred him to Ryutan, not more than five miles away. So he went to Ryutan in all humility, quite different from when he had started his journey. Ryutan in turn was so kind he forgot his own dignity. It was like pouring muddy water over a drunken man to sober him. After all, it was an unnecessary comedy.
A hundred hearings cannot surpass one seeing,
But after you see the teacher, that once glance cannot surpass a hundred hearings.
His nose was very high
But he was blind after all.
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The First Sermon
The dead came back from Jerusalem, where they did not find what they were seeking. They asked admittance to me and demanded to be taught by me, and thus I taught them:
Hear Ye: I begin with nothing. Nothing is the same as fullness. In the endless state fullness is the same as emptiness. The Nothing is both empty and full. One may just as well state some other thing about the Nothing, namely that it is white or that it is black or that it exists or that it exists not. That which is endless and eternal has no qualities, because it has all qualities.
The Nothing, or fullness, is called by us the PLEROMA. In it thinking and being cease, because the eternal is without qualities. In it there is no one, for if anyone were, he would be differentiated from the Pleroma and would possess qualities which would distinguish him from the Pleroma.
In the Pleroma there is nothing and everything: it is not profitable to think about the Pleroma, for to do that would mean one’s dissolution.
The CREATED WORLD is not in the Pleroma, but in itself. The Pleroma is the beginning and end of the created world. The Pleroma penetrates the created world as the sunlight penetrates the air everywhere. Although the Pleroma penetrates it completely, the created world has no part of it, just as an utterly transparent body does not become either dark or light in color as the result of the passage of light through it. We ourselves, however, are the Pleroma, so it is that the Pleroma is present within us. Even in the smallest point the Pleroma is present without any bounds, eternally and completely, for small and great are the qualities which are alien to the Pleroma. The Pleroma is the nothingness which is everywhere complete and without end. It is because of this that I speak of the created world as a portion of the Pleroma, but only in an allegorical sense; for the Pleroma is not divided into portions, for it is nothingness. We, also, are the total Pleroma; for figuratively the Pleroma is an exceedingly small, hypothetical, even non-existent point within us, and also it is the limitless firmament of the cosmos about us. Why, however, do we discourse about the Pleroma, if it is the all, and also nothing?
I speak of it in order to begin somewhere, and also to remove from you the delusion that somewhere within or without there is something absolutely firm and definite. All things which are called definite and solid are but relative, for only that which is subject to change appears definite and solid.
The created world is subject to change. It is the only thing that is solid and definite, since it has qualities. In fact, the created world is itself but a quality.
We ask the question: how did creation originate? Creatures indeed originated but not the created world itself, for the created world is a quality of the Pleroma, in the same way as the uncreated; eternal death is also a quality of the Pleroma. Creation is always and everywhere, and death is always and everywhere. The Pleroma possesses all: differentiation and non-differentiation.
Differentiation is creation. The created world is indeed differentiated. Differentiation is the essence of the created world and for this reason the created also causes further differentiation. That is why man himself is a divider, inasmuch as his essence is also differentiation. That is why he distinguishes the qualities of the Pleroma, yea, those qualities which do not exist.
You say to me: What good is it then to talk about this, since it has been said that it is useless to think about the Pleroma?
I say these things to you in order to free you from the illusion that it is possible to think about the Pleroma. When you speak about the divisions of the Pleroma, we are speaking from the position of our own divisions, and we speak about our own differentiated state; but while we do this, we have in reality said nothing about the Pleroma. However, it is necessary to talk about our own differentiation, for this enables us to discriminate sufficiently. Our essence is differentiation. For this reason we must distinguish individual qualities.
You say: What harm does it not do to discriminate, for then we reach beyond the limits of our own being; we extend ourselves beyond the created world, and we fall into the undifferentiated state which is another quality of the Pleroma. We submerge into the Pleroma itself, and we cease to be created beings. This we become subject to dissolution and nothingness.
Such is the very death of the created being. We die to the extent that we fail to discriminate. For this reason the natural impulse of the created being is directed toward differentiation and toward the struggle against the ancient, pernicious state of sameness. The natural tendency is called Principium Individuationis (Principle of Individuation). This principle is indeed the essence of every created being. From these things you may readily recognize why the undifferentiated principle and lack of discrimination are all a great danger to created beings. For this reason we must be able to distinguish the qualities of the Pleroma. Its qualities are the PAIRS OF OPPOSITES, such as:
the effective and the ineffective
fullness and emptiness
the living and the dead
light and dark
hot and cold
energy and matter
time and space
good and evil
the beautiful and the ugly
the one and the many
and so forth.The pairs of opposites are the qualities of the Pleroma: they are also in reality non-existent because they cancel each other out.
Since we ourselves are the Pleroma, we also have these qualities present within us; inasmuch as the foundation of our being is differentiation, we possess these qualities in the name and under the sign of differentiation, which means:
First—that the qualities are in us differentiated from each other, and they are separated from each other, and thus they do not cancel each other out, rather they are in action. It is thus that we are the victims of the pairs of opposites. For in us the Pleroma is rent in two.
Second—the qualities belong to the Pleroma, and we can and should partake of them only in the name and under the sign of differentiation. We must separate ourselves from these qualities. In the Pleroma they cancel each other out; in us they do not. But if we know how to know ourselves as being apart from the pairs of opposites, then we have attained to salvation.
When we strive for the good and the beautiful, we thereby forget about our essential being, which is differentiation, and we are victimized by the qualities of the Pleroma which are the pairs of opposites. We strive to attain to the good and beautiful, but at the same time we also to the evil and the ugly, because in the Pleroma these are identical with the good and the beautiful. However, if we remain faithful to our nature, which is differentiation, we then differentiate ourselves from the good and the beautiful, and thus we have immediately differentiated ourselves from the evil and the ugly. It is only thus that we do not merge into the Pleroma, that is, into nothingness and dissolution.
You will object and say to me: Thou hast said that differentiation and sameness are also qualities of the Pleroma. How is it then that we strive for differentiation? Are we not then true to our natures and must we then also eventually be in the state of sameness, while we strive for differentiation?
What you should never forget is that the Pleroma has no qualities. We are the ones who create these qualities through our thinking. When you strive after differentiation or sameness or after other qualities, you strive after thoughts which flow to you from the Pleroma, namely thoughts about the non-existent qualities of the Pleroma. While you run after these thoughts, you fall again into the Pleroma and arrive at differentiation and sameness at the same time. Not your thinking but your being is differentiation. That is why you should not strive after differentiation and discrimination as you know these, but strive after your true nature. If you would thus truly strive, you would not need to know anything about the Pleroma and its qualities, and still you would arrive at the true goal because of your nature. However, because thinking alienates us from our true nature, therefore I must teach knowledge to you, with which you can keep your thinking under control.
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It is Not Mind, It is Not Buddha, It is Not Things
A monk asked Nansen: `Is there a teaching no master ever preached before?’
Nansen said: `Yes, there is.’`What is it?’ asked the monk.
Nansen replied: `It is not mind, it is not Buddha, it is not things.’
Mumon’s Comment: Old Nansen gave away his treasure-words. He must have been greatly upset.
Nansen was too kind and lost his treasure.
Truly, words have no power.
Even though the mountain becomes the sea,
Words cannot open another’s mind.
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The Queen of Swords
understanding a great deal about both the great triumphs, and the deepest failings of the race. Her clarity and measured expression will be of great value at times of confusion and sadness.a widow, or a woman passing through the aftermath of divorce
coldness, judgementalism, criticism
perception and insight. I
can feel uneasy, discomforted and awkward when being observed by her.
absorbed by the intricacies of the process of life
Struggle to seek behind that mask for the whole being beyond.
Look hard at yourself. You take up roles. Use this day to begin to identify them clearly. Examine the way that you feel differently in each situation. And recognise that though each of those roles is an expression of you, not one single one of them IS you.
Then take that realisation beyond you into the world…….
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Two Monks Rolls Up the Screen
Hogen of Seiryo monastery was about to lecture before dinner when he noticed that the bamboo screen lowered for meditation had not been rolled up. He pointed to it. Two monks arose from the audience and rolled it up.
Hogen, observing the physical moment, said: `The state of the first monk is good, not that of the other.’
Mumon’s Comment: I want to ask you: Which of those two monks gained and which lost? If any of you has one eye, he will see the failure on the teacher’s part. However, I am not discussing gain and loss.
When the screen is rolled up the great sky opens,
Yet the sky is not attuned to Zen.
It is best to forget the great sky
And to retire from every wind.
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Preaching from the Third Seat
In a dream Kyozen went to Maitreya’s Pure Land. He recognized himself seated in the third seat in the abode of Maitreya. Someone announced: `Today the one who sits in the third seat will preach.’
Kyozen arose and, hitting the gavel, said: `The truthof Mahayana teaching is transcendent, above words and thought. Do you understand?’
Mumon’s Comment: I want to ask you monks: Did he preach or did he not?
When he opens his mouth he is lost. When he seals his mouth he is lost. If he does not open it, if he does not seal it, he is 108,000 miles from the truth.
In the light of day,
Yet in a dream he talks of a dream.
A monster among monsters,
He intended to deceive the whole crowd.
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XI Lust / Strength
Lust tells us to joyously accept life
Having a fascination and enthusiasm with the whole life process
Right attention is a challenging skill to develop
placing your attention in the moment, and then holding it there.
Sit down somewhere comfortably. Smooth and calm your breathing. Now first pay attention to your body…what does it tell you? Once you have attended to its needs, spread your attention out further….. deliberately engage one sense at a time. What do you see? Look in minute detail – you know you’ve got it right when you notice things you didn’t know were there before. Now add hearing. What do you hear? Really listen hard……again when you hear things you would not normally register, you’re doing well. What do you feel? See this as both a physical ‘feel’ and an emotional ‘feel’, then separate the two. What can you taste? How does your mouth feel? What do you smell? Can you unwind the different scents in the air?
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XV The Devil
The Devil does not therefore necessarily represent an evil being.
The Devil is the personification of the animal, instinctual and even bestial parts of us
Pre-occupation with matters connected to the Devil can lead to degradation and sheer ugliness, but by identifying and accepting the darkness within we learn to discover that it is simply the dark side of our light.
it can appear to indicate evil acts, trouble, strife and conflict
And it is our lack of belief that causes most of the problems.
Our survival needs, like hunger, thirst, protection, warmth, safety are ruled by the card, as are our sexual desires and needs.
Our ability to think has got in our own way here.
Even if we don’t actually have a disorder as such, we can have hang-ups, inhibitions, insecurities, fears.
The important thing to remember here is that, this being the case, by shifting our viewpoint, altering our perspective, we can change the way we feel about the things in the Devil’s domain. And in achieving that, we set ourselves free to be who we are.
Look into your fears, and try to see if they have any basis in reality. If you find inhibitions in these basic areas, try to examine them. Locate their source..and then try to let go and move on. Remove the restrictions and limitations that narrow the boundaries of your horizon.
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Without Words, Without Silence
A monk asked Fuketsu: `Without speaking, without silence, how can you express the truth?’
Fuketsu observed: `I always remember spring-time in southern China. The birds sing among innumerable kinds of fragrant flowers.’Mumon’s Comment: Fuketsu used to have lightning Zen. Whenever he had the oppurtunity, he flashed it. But this time he failed to do so and only borrowed from an old Chinese poem. Never mind Fuketsu’s Zen. If you want to express the truth, throw out your words, throw out your silence, and tell me about your own Zen.
Without revealing his own penetration,
He offered another’s words, not his to give.
Had he chattered on and on,
Even his listeners would have been embarassed.
David Given Schwarm 