August 8, 2007

Get out of jail, free


You awake at 4:00 am, think of a monopoly card, and then fall back asleep peacefully. Why?

This might be viewed as a "koan", an object of meditation used primarily in Rinzai and less often in other schools of Zen. In this approach known as "gazing at the topic" Zen, you're "not to employ discriminative understanding, thinking or calculation, intuition, verbal strategy, absolute nonchalance, engagement, analysis of the words, or anything else" (Broughton, the Bodhidharma Anthology). You're simply to raise up the topic 24 hours a day and constantly be aware of it. Hmm ...

This and other Zen topics have been on my mind, given the number of temples I visited in Japan. While some forms of Buddhism like Jodo (Pure Land) and Shingon (True Word) have a devotional aspect, Zen says ... the mind is Buddha. But it also says the mind is not Buddha. How does one find peace?

A classic collection of koan used in the Rinzai school is the Mumonkan, the "no gate" barrier. From the introduction:

Buddhism makes mind its foundation and no-gate its gate. Now how do you pass through this no-gate? It is said that things coming in through the gate can never be your own treasures. What is gained through external circumstances will perish in the end. However, such a saying is already raising waves when there is no wind. It is cutting unblemished skin. As for those who try to understand through other people's words, they are striking at the moon with a stick, scratching a shoe, whereas it is the foot that itches.

In order to master Zen, you must pass the barrier of the patriarchs. To attain this subtle realization, you must completely cut off the way of thinking. If you do not pass the barrier, and do not cut off the way of thinking, then you will be like a ghost clinging to the bushes and weeds.

Time to print my own "get out of jail, free" card and have some dinner ...

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