A Beardless Foreigner Koan#4
Wakun complained when he saw a picture of the bearded Bodhidharma: `Why hasn't that fellow a beard?
'Mumon's comment: If you want to study Zen, you must study it with all your heart. When you attain realization, it must be true realization. You yourself must have the face of the great Bodhidharma to see him. Just once such glimpse will be enough. But if you say you met him, you never saw him at all.
One should not discuss a dream
In front of a simpleton.
Why has Bodhidharma no beard?
What an absurd question!
This is a classic simple but seemingly absurd koan. Look straight at a picture of a fellow with a beard and then state that fellow has no beard. It just makes your head spin. But then isn't reading the Heart Sutra the same? "No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, etc.." And What about MU? We are still at the beginning of the Mumonkan. This is just koan #4 and we are still building our foundation. Again return to samadhi. Follow your breath, or listen, or whatever technique allows you to enter samadhi and return to samadhi. Maybe it is getting easier, this is koan 4.
You might think that there is no difference between Mu -koan 1- and this koan, but they do have a decidedly different flavors. From the perspective of Mu there is no Bodhidharma. But in this koan there is an acknowledgment of Bodhidharma just not his beard. But then ask, who is Bodhidharma? Is he just that fellow who brought Zen from India to China? Enter that world of non-duality and we find we sit with the ancestors, we walk with the ancestors and we work with the ancestors. The clothing that keeps us warm and dry is the flesh and bones of the ancestors. But bones skin and flesh is also the clothing that kept the ancestors warm and dry.
How do we live in the world of 10,000 things and yet still see through the lens of non-duality? All of the multiplicity all the individuality, all the duality exists within the non-dual. How do you make the non-dual your own? Become the non-dual. See yourself in all the 10,000 things. Your True Self is not just that calm state we call samadhi. Nor is it your individual mind that sees and clearly understands. Don't be caught by small views. Your view must be as big as the Universe
'Mumon's comment: If you want to study Zen, you must study it with all your heart. When you attain realization, it must be true realization. You yourself must have the face of the great Bodhidharma to see him. Just once such glimpse will be enough. But if you say you met him, you never saw him at all.
One should not discuss a dream
In front of a simpleton.
Why has Bodhidharma no beard?
What an absurd question!
This is a classic simple but seemingly absurd koan. Look straight at a picture of a fellow with a beard and then state that fellow has no beard. It just makes your head spin. But then isn't reading the Heart Sutra the same? "No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, etc.." And What about MU? We are still at the beginning of the Mumonkan. This is just koan #4 and we are still building our foundation. Again return to samadhi. Follow your breath, or listen, or whatever technique allows you to enter samadhi and return to samadhi. Maybe it is getting easier, this is koan 4.
You might think that there is no difference between Mu -koan 1- and this koan, but they do have a decidedly different flavors. From the perspective of Mu there is no Bodhidharma. But in this koan there is an acknowledgment of Bodhidharma just not his beard. But then ask, who is Bodhidharma? Is he just that fellow who brought Zen from India to China? Enter that world of non-duality and we find we sit with the ancestors, we walk with the ancestors and we work with the ancestors. The clothing that keeps us warm and dry is the flesh and bones of the ancestors. But bones skin and flesh is also the clothing that kept the ancestors warm and dry.
How do we live in the world of 10,000 things and yet still see through the lens of non-duality? All of the multiplicity all the individuality, all the duality exists within the non-dual. How do you make the non-dual your own? Become the non-dual. See yourself in all the 10,000 things. Your True Self is not just that calm state we call samadhi. Nor is it your individual mind that sees and clearly understands. Don't be caught by small views. Your view must be as big as the Universe
RSS Feed