Case 47 Tosotsu's Three Barriers                         
Tosotsu Etsu Oshõ set up three barriers for his disciples:

1. You leave no stone unturned to explore profundity, simply to see into your true nature.

Now, I want to ask you, just at this moment, where is your true nature?

2. If you realize your true nature, you are free from life and death.

Tell me, when your eyesight deserts you at the last moment, how can you be free from life and death?

3. When you set yourself free from life and death, you should know your ultimate destination. So when the four elements separate, where will you go?
 
Mumon's Comment

If you can put turning words to these three questions, you are the master wherever you may stand and command Zen whatever circumstances you may be in.

If otherwise, listen: gulping down your meal will fill you easily, but chewing it well can sustain you.
 
Mumon's Verse 
    This moment's thoughts sees through eternal time;
    Eternal time is just this moment.
    If you see through this moment's thought,
    You see through the man who sees through this moment.
 

Nearing the end of our long journey.
Just a few more questions.
Do you have any questions?

​          We might think of the Mumonkan as a course of study, 47 koans / questions to pass and you are a Zen Master.  In the Rinzai tradition students are often trained with these 47 koans.  I on the other hand did not use the Mumonkan for my training.  I only officially passed 3 koans with Sasaki Roshi and they were not traditional koans.  And then some 20 years later, continuing to practice I began working with Harada Rosh, and he chose not to go the koan route with me.  It has been a pleasure to work through these koans even if only to write a commentary on each one.
        Here are the last 3 questions all in one koan.  If you have truly worked through the previous 46 koans these questions offer no difficulty.  Do you know your True Self.  I know many people who have been practicing for years and years who still do not know their true self.  They are still caught in a conception of their individuality.  True freedom comes only when we know who we are and are thus no longer afraid of death.  But it is more then just a knowing, it has to be linked to deep experience and that deep experience through years of training is available in each moment. 
         I was asked by another Zen teacher what I do when my mind becomes disturbed and I loose my equanimity, - this happens to all of us even Zen Masters - and my response was that I chant.  I have been chanting for years and years.  I do it when I walk and I do it when I drive, sometimes I even do it when I sit.  Over the years It has developed into a quick way I can quiet the mind and enter what I may call a light samadhi.  The other Teacher said that all experienced and successful practitioners have a bag of tricks.  The point is that through years of practice we have trained our minds, and have a a bag of tricks, so that in every moment kensho - seeing the true self/nature - becomes available.  This is true freedom.
           So what is your True Nature?  I am not suppose to tell you because this is something each person must discover for themselves but even so I will tell you it is everything and not a thing. Become the Universe.  Become everything in the Universe.  Become the activity of the Universe.  Become the conscious awareness of the Universe.  This is our True Nature this is our True Self.  If you know your true nature you will know what happens after the element of the individual body disperse.  Our body is only a temporary manifestation as all individual things are temporary manifestations.  Our consciousness is also a temporary manifestation.  We are not just an individual body.  We are not just an individual consciousness.  We are all individual bodies and we are all individual consciousnesses.
          There is no death.  There is only process and transformation.  And this is not individual transformation or an individual process.  It involves the whole Universe  There is nothing to hold on to.  There is nothing we can hold on to.
          










 

Case 46 Proceed On from the Top of the Pole                          
 
Sekisõ Oshõ asked, "How can you proceed on further from the top of a hundred-foot pole?"
Another eminent teacher of old said, "You, who sit on the top of a hundred-foot pole, although you have entered the Way you are not yet genuine.
Proceed on from the top of the pole, and you will show your whole body in the ten directions."
 
Mumon's Comment
If you go on further and turn your body about, no place is left where you are not the master.
But even so, tell me, how will you go on further from the top of a hundred-foot pole? Eh?"
 
Mumon's Verse 
 He darkens the third eye of insight
 And clings to the first mark on the scale.
 Even though he may sacrifice his life,
 He is only a blind man leading the blind.
 

          Top of a 100 foot pole, are you there?  Sometimes I think this Zen practice is not only like climbing to the top of a 100' pole but the pole is also greased  and I keep sliding backwards.  I have been playing a lot of music these days now that I have retired from regular work.  I have been practicing one song quite a bit and the other day during my evening sit I could not get that tune out of my head for the whole hour.  It's ok but I have worked all these years on training this (my) mind to be quiet.  And then my wife is adept at showing me where I am still attached.
           If you get to the top of the pole and truly quiet your mind then just sit there for a while, relax, look around, the path on is clear.  Your whole body fills the ten directions.  Do you see that?  All that work for such a simple insight but still it is a revolution.
          The last of the Ox Herding Pictures shows a joyous Bodhisattva giving out gifts to children.  All your years of hard work are not for your ego bound small self.  That self is just an illusion and by now you know that.  The outcome of all the hard work is that now you partake in the activity of the Universal Bodhisattva which is really your true self.    

Case 45 Hõen's "Who Is He?"                  
 
Hõen of Tõzan said, "Even Shakya and Maitreya are servants of another.
I want to ask you, who is he?"
 
Mumon's Comment
If you can really see this "another" with perfect clarity, it is like encountering your own father at a crossroads. Why should you ask whether you recognize him or not?
 
Mumon's Verse 
     Don't draw another's bow,
     Don't ride another's horse,
     Don't discuss another's faults,
     Don't explore another's affairs.

          I shouldn't write or say anything about this koan or for that matter any koan.  You either understand or you don't.  You have either put in the untold hours of of zazen or you haven't.  You have either experienced samdhi or you haven't.  This "another", this master of Shakya and Maitreya is not something you can grasp intellectually with words and yet you know it contains and is the master of all the gods and buddhas.  This is not about faith, no it is something that we can perceive.  At times we personify it like in this koan but it is not an individual being.  We can call it Being itself or Buddha or the Man of No Rank, or even God but these are just names.  Names can carry us into the realm of duality and fill us with ideas.  It is better not to give it a name, but if we are clear eyed and not filled with thoughts then we can perceive this master which is everything and no-thing.
          One of the fallacies that we humans fall into is the idea of free will.  It goes with the idea of an individual being.  But in truth none of us are in charge, it is just another idea.  The complexities of cause and effect are beyond grasping.  Nothing happens independent of everything else because there is no everything else, there is only this master.  "In all of heaven and earth there is only One and it is I." 
 

Case 43 Shuzan's Shippei              
 
Shuzan Oshõ held up his shippei [staff of office] before his disciples and said, "You monks! If you call this a shippei, you oppose its reality.
If you do not call it a shippei, you ignore the fact.
Tell me, you monks, what will you call it?"
 
Mumon's Comment
If you call it a shippei, you oppose its reality.
If you do not call it a shippei, you ignore the fact.
Words are not available; silence is not available.
Now, tell me quickly, what is it?
 
Mumon's Verse 
      Holding up the shippei,
     He takes life, he gives life.
     Opposing and ignoring interweave.
     Even Buddhas and patriarchs beg for their lives.
 
          For those of you who have never seen a shippei it is a carved stick about 2 feet long. Sometimes it has horse hair at one end.  Typically a Zen Master will hold his shippie, dressed in full regalia, while doing sanzen with his students.  I don't have a shippei because I am a lay teacher and not a priest.  In the old days and maybe still in Japan today the shippei would be  occasionally used to hit a student to shock him out of conventional thought.  The only time I ever saw the shippei used was Sasaki Roshi using it to test the depth of my samadhi.  All he did was drop it and watch my reaction to the sound.
          Again Shuzan Osho is using his shippei to test the samadhi of his students.  If  a student gets caught thinking and thus come out of samadhi or was never in samadhi he/she will give some stupid answer that will never satisfy Shuzan but if he remains in samadhi some spontanious action will manifest.  The student might grab the shippei and try to break it or maybe let out a great shout, who knows.  But whatever the student does he or she will be having great fun.

Case 42 The Girl Comes out of Samadhi                       
 
Once, in the old days, in the time of the World-honored One, Manjusri went to the assembly of the Buddhas and found that everyone had departed to his original dwelling place.
Only a girl remained, sitting in samadhi close to the Buddha's throne.
Manjusri asked Shakyamuni Buddha, "Why can the girl get near the Buddha's throne, while I cannot?"
Shakyamuni Buddha said, "Bring her out of her samadhi and ask her yourself
Manjusri walked around the girl three times, snapped his fingers once, took her to the Brahma heaven, and exerted all his miraculous powers to bring her out of her meditation, but in vain.
 
The World-honored One said, "Even a hundred thousand Manjusris cannot make her wake up.
But down below, past twelve hundred million lands as innumerable as the sands of Ganges, there is a Bodhisattva Mõmyo
He will be able to rouse her from her samadhi."
Instantly the Bodhisattva Mõmyõ emerged from the earth and made a bow to the World-honored One, who gave him his imperial order
The Bodhisattva went over to the girl and snapped his fingers once
At this she came out of her samadhi.
 
Mumon's Comment
Old Shakyamuni put a petty drama on the stage and failed to enlighten the masses.
I want to ask you: Manjusri is the teacher of the Seven Buddhas; why couldn't he arouse the girl from her samadhi?
How was it that Mõmyõ, a Bodhisattva at the beginner's stage, could do it?
If you understand this intimately, you will enjoy Nagya's grand samadhi in the busiest activity of consciousness.
 
Mumon's Verse 
 One was successful, the other was not;
 Both secured freedom of mind.
 One in a god-mask, the other in a devil-mask;
 Even in defeat, a beautiful performance.

          A magical tale in the language of the inconceivable.  But still it must mean something, it must refernce some experience of the advanced practitioner who has worked their way through most of the Mumonkan.  First we must understand the story.  A girl deep in samadhi cannot be roused by Manjusri the Bodhisattva of wisdom, one of the most advanced Bodhisattvas an enlightened being.  But Monyo a Bodhisattva not from the heavenly realms but rather from the dark places deep within the Earth wakes her from her samadhi.  
          There are two questions that we answer with this koan.  For the advanced practitioner what is the nature of samadhi?  The second question is how do we interact with the world with this samadhi?  For years we work very hard to first learn to go into samadhi and then make samadhi part of everyday life.  At first we experience small bits of samadhi but it has no stability.  But then as we experience samadhi more and more it develops stability but it also changes.  The shift into samadhi stops being dramatic and we find ourselves in samadhi naturally.  Samadhi becomes not something that happens just on the cushion but a way of interacting with the world both on and off the cushion and the samadhi on and off the cushion can be different.  On the cushion absolute samadhi is absolutely quiet without discrimination but it is also  without heart.  That won't work off the cushion.  To function in the world we need to be able to think and more then just think we need to function with heart and still be in samadhi.  This is different then the way most people function.  Most of us are caught in our small world of I and our minds are running without discipline filled with ego based thoughts and ego based emotions.  In active samadhi we function with the wisdom of no self, without attachment to ego based thought or emotion, but still deeply felt with love and compassion and thought directed to the activity at hand.
          Why would Manjusri take a disciplined meditator out of absolute samadhi?  Manjusri lives in the heavenly realm of absolute samadhi.  Monyo on the other hand, from the earthly realm, knows suffering well.  We practitioners of Zen should not hide within our meditation but instead use the power of meditation to engage the suffering of the world.  But, be careful don't get caught by this suffering.  Don't return to that world of judgement of and attachment to right and wrong.  Stay within the world of non-duality and no-self even as you function within duality.  If you can do this you will always be in samadhi.