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@genkaku : thanks for your above insightful reply.
Hi All,
While i am studying the 300 koan collections of Dogen, i came across the below koan: One day the emperor’s attendant Wang Jingchu went to the monastics’ hall with Linji and
asked him, “Do monastics in this hall study sūtras?”
Linji said, “No, they don’t study sūtras.”
Wang said, “Do they study Zen?”
Linji said, “No, they don’t study Zen.”
Wang said, “Not studying sūtras and not studying Zen, what do they do?”
Linji said, “All we do is make them become buddhas and ancestors.”
Wang said, “Even precious gold dust, if it gets into your eyes, will cause blindness.
Don’t you think so?”
Linji said, “I always thought you were just a worldly person.”
Without reading its commentary, somehow I got what this koan is saying - may be my ego is saying to me to post this thing - But please if somebody could ask some questions on this koan, then i can try to check my understanding - obviously i do not even know who i am and what is it - so obviously i do not know - so i am type of a stupid person. May be many koans i do not understand, but this one i think i understand, so i have become excited and my ego is boasting about understanding this koan. Damn, i am falling into ego now even more. May be the above koan is an easy koan, so i can understand it a little bit.
after reading so many koans, i think i can try to speak in the language of koans - so i am fearing that i may become that type of person, who can talk the talk, but not walk the walk.
This is all about freeing yourself from your own mentality.
Perhaps you should ask yourself if having an understanding corroborated will offer you any of that.
i read the below lines in a commentary on a koan: Enlightenment without morality is not yet enlightenment. Morality without enlightenment is not yet morality. Enlightenment and morality are nondual in the Way. One does not exist without the other. The truth is not beyond good and evil as is commonly believed. It is, rather, a way of living one’s life with a definite moral commitment that is practiced, realized, and verified within the realm of good and evil itself, yet remains undefiled by them.
what is the meaning of 'yet remains undefiled by them' in above italicized lines? does it try to say that we should not think from our ego that we have done something good, as this thinking makes it defiled - or even discriminating into good and bad is a defilement - but then how can we act without discriminating between good and bad?
@misecmisc1
Here's another commentary on koan study.
Do you actually think that these Koans or their commentary's were offered so that some people could ask other people what they thought of them?
Meditate.
Allow that practice to be the answer.
Stop thinking your own mentality can do the practice for you.
Quit asking your mind to run roughshod over the other shandhas and sense gates.
&
Don't ask us to be your koan studies cheat sheet.
@misecmisc1 Don't sell yourself short. First, you have the courage to tackle the koans instead of using the excuse "Oh, you must have a Zen Master to even begin to make sense of them" and second, you are putting effort into comprehending the language of the koan and that shows you're doing it right. There is a language and a format to the koans. Chinese or Japanese monks would know this. For some reason, when the Zen missionaries took their practice to the West, they assumed we would automatically know this set of metaphors so koan practice both fascinates us and never really caught on because it was ineffective.
@Cinorjer : thanks sir for your above moral boasting post for koan study. actually i am finding these koans insightful - the chinese and japanese names of the different masters and their students, when i read them i see a small story going there, initially i read them from a curiosity point of view like ok, now next what is going to happen in this story, what will the master ask or say and what will the disciple or the monastic say or ask something like a thriller kind of story , but obviously in the end usually no thrill remains and the face expression usually turns out to be - sorry, what, what was this story saying. Most koans i will say that i am not able to understand them as they does not make any sense to me - but some koans i am able to understand, though a little bit.
i am lucky to have got internet and because of it i raised a thread saying thanks to internet a few months back. till now i have not bought a single book on spirituality covering Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism etc - the only book which i have bought till now is Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta, but thanks to internet, first i read its full commentary on internet and then i read the complete book, even though nearly 2 to 3 years back, i had bought this book before reading its full commentary on internet.
as far as this book of Dogen's 300 koan collections is concerned, this also i searched on google and got a pdf link to it. the book name is - The True Dharma Eye - Zen Master Dōgen’s THREE HUNDRED KŌANS - with commentary and verse by John Daido Loori and translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi and John Daido Loori. i started with the first koan in it and reading the koans sequentially in the way it is arranged in this book, currently i am reading 239th koan in it - though i think my reading is just a casual reading of it, but i have found that its commentaries and the notes given below are insightful and helps to clarify where the koan is trying to take us.
@how i am trying to understand what you are saying and about meditating - i try to sit, though not regularly - but during the tea and walking after lunch, i try to be mindful.
Comments
@genkaku : thanks for your above insightful reply.
Hi All,
While i am studying the 300 koan collections of Dogen, i came across the below koan:
One day the emperor’s attendant Wang Jingchu went to the monastics’ hall with Linji and
asked him, “Do monastics in this hall study sūtras?”
Linji said, “No, they don’t study sūtras.”
Wang said, “Do they study Zen?”
Linji said, “No, they don’t study Zen.”
Wang said, “Not studying sūtras and not studying Zen, what do they do?”
Linji said, “All we do is make them become buddhas and ancestors.”
Wang said, “Even precious gold dust, if it gets into your eyes, will cause blindness.
Don’t you think so?”
Linji said, “I always thought you were just a worldly person.”
Without reading its commentary, somehow I got what this koan is saying - may be my ego is saying to me to post this thing - But please if somebody could ask some questions on this koan, then i can try to check my understanding - obviously i do not even know who i am and what is it - so obviously i do not know - so i am type of a stupid person. May be many koans i do not understand, but this one i think i understand, so i have become excited and my ego is boasting about understanding this koan. Damn, i am falling into ego now even more. May be the above koan is an easy koan, so i can understand it a little bit.
after reading so many koans, i think i can try to speak in the language of koans - so i am fearing that i may become that type of person, who can talk the talk, but not walk the walk.
@misecmisc1
This is all about freeing yourself from your own mentality.
Perhaps you should ask yourself if having an understanding corroborated will offer you any of that.
hi all,
i read the below lines in a commentary on a koan:
Enlightenment without morality is not yet enlightenment. Morality without enlightenment is not yet morality. Enlightenment and morality are nondual in the Way. One does not exist without the other. The truth is not beyond good and evil as is commonly believed. It is, rather, a way of living one’s life with a definite moral commitment that is practiced, realized, and verified within the realm of good and evil itself, yet remains undefiled by them.
what is the meaning of 'yet remains undefiled by them' in above italicized lines? does it try to say that we should not think from our ego that we have done something good, as this thinking makes it defiled - or even discriminating into good and bad is a defilement - but then how can we act without discriminating between good and bad?
please suggest. thanks in advance.
@misecmisc1
Here's another commentary on koan study.
Do you actually think that these Koans or their commentary's were offered so that some people could ask other people what they thought of them?
Meditate.
Allow that practice to be the answer.
Stop thinking your own mentality can do the practice for you.
Quit asking your mind to run roughshod over the other shandhas and sense gates.
&
Don't ask us to be your koan studies cheat sheet.
I believe there is no such thing as a meditation master.
@misecmisc1 Don't sell yourself short. First, you have the courage to tackle the koans instead of using the excuse "Oh, you must have a Zen Master to even begin to make sense of them" and second, you are putting effort into comprehending the language of the koan and that shows you're doing it right. There is a language and a format to the koans. Chinese or Japanese monks would know this. For some reason, when the Zen missionaries took their practice to the West, they assumed we would automatically know this set of metaphors so koan practice both fascinates us and never really caught on because it was ineffective.
@Cinorjer : thanks sir for your above moral boasting post for koan study. actually i am finding these koans insightful - the chinese and japanese names of the different masters and their students, when i read them i see a small story going there, initially i read them from a curiosity point of view like ok, now next what is going to happen in this story, what will the master ask or say and what will the disciple or the monastic say or ask
something like a thriller kind of story , but obviously in the end usually no thrill remains and the face expression usually turns out to be - sorry, what, what was this story saying. Most koans i will say that i am not able to understand them as they does not make any sense to me - but some koans i am able to understand, though a little bit.
i am lucky to have got internet and because of it i raised a thread saying thanks to internet a few months back. till now i have not bought a single book on spirituality covering Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism etc - the only book which i have bought till now is Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta, but thanks to internet, first i read its full commentary on internet and then i read the complete book, even though nearly 2 to 3 years back, i had bought this book before reading its full commentary on internet.
as far as this book of Dogen's 300 koan collections is concerned, this also i searched on google and got a pdf link to it. the book name is - The True Dharma Eye - Zen Master Dōgen’s THREE HUNDRED KŌANS - with commentary and verse by John Daido Loori and translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi and John Daido Loori. i started with the first koan in it and reading the koans sequentially in the way it is arranged in this book, currently i am reading 239th koan in it - though i think my reading is just a casual reading of it, but i have found that its commentaries and the notes given below are insightful and helps to clarify where the koan is trying to take us.
@how i am trying to understand what you are saying and about meditating - i try to sit, though not regularly - but during the tea and walking after lunch, i try to be mindful.
i came across the below video URL and i find it insightful, so thought of sharing with you all:
may be this is what @how is telling in above posts.
I can't help you OP, I recite the Buddha's name...
Perhaps recite for the OP ...