Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Examples: Monday, today, last week, Mar 26, 3/26/04
Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.

Give your hardest question! :D

2»

Comments

  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    edited April 2019

    You are up high in a tree hanging from a branch with your teeth; your arms and legs are bound. Someone appears under the tree with a gun and asks, 'Why did Bodhidharma come to china?' If you do not answer, the man will shoot and you'll die. If you open your mouth to answer, you will fall and die. How do you stay alive?

    AKA: Mumonkan - Case 5: Kyogen's "Man Up a Tree"

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    Mu....

  • personperson Don't believe everything you think The liminal space Veteran

    Well, if I can support by body weight with just the strength of my bite I might have superpowers. So I try to communicate telepathically or shoot laser beams out of my eyes at him.

    lobsterShoshin
  • I would say "what the heck you asking me questions at this time? Can't you see I am stuck up in a tree hanging by my mouth? Help me out of this damn tree"...THUNK. (now hopefully I am very lucky and survive)

  • KundoKundo Sydney, Australia Veteran
    edited April 2019

    @seeker242 said:
    If you do not answer, the man will shoot and you'll die. If you open your mouth to answer, you will fall and die. How do you stay alive?

    AKA: Mumonkan - Case 5: Kyogen's "Man Up a Tree"

    Scratch that. My arms are bound. I'd explode if I couldn't talk with my hands :awesome:

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    The answer is that there is no answer. It is an illustration of how confined we are, how we imprison our Minds and restrict our views of self... open your mouth? It doesn't matter. Keep your mouth closed? It doesn't matter.
    It's a bit like the question I posed earlier in the thread, that begins "imagine you are in a room..."
    Escaping from the possibility of being trapped and drowning involves thinking outside the box.
    The logical conclusion was to stop imagining.

    The solution to this dilemma is along the same lines.
    Hanging by your teeth or not, the solution is ethereal, because the problem is ethereal.

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    @Kundo said:

    @seeker242 said:
    If you do not answer, the man will shoot and you'll die. If you open your mouth to answer, you will fall and die. How do you stay alive?

    AKA: Mumonkan - Case 5: Kyogen's "Man Up a Tree"


    Scratch that. My arms are bound. I'd explode if I couldn't talk with my hands :awesome:

    You're Italian. I told you we must be related.

    Kundo
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran

    @Jeffrey said:
    I would say

    Woops, you opened your mouth! you're dead! =)

    @federica said:
    The answer is that there is no answer.

    There is an answer. If you don't give it, the teacher won't allow you to progress to the next koan!

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    Aw. You spoil all my fun. An' there I was, thinkin' I was so wise, an' shit...

    Kundolobster
  • sovasova delocalized fractyllic harmonizing Veteran

    @Kerome
    My answer had two parts.
    One started with " truth is..."
    and the other started with "synthesize"
    since i said those words from an inspired state of mind
    i implore you to look at them again

    @Jeffrey said:
    Next question: Why was the Alexandrian library burned?

    Because the Romans were savages who curated their specific brand of Emperor-god Worship very meticulously, and could not tolerate alternate narratives. Is my best guess for such a moment in time that has long passed.

    What comes first, the tool or the art?

    First is art. The tool is also art.

    @Shoshin said:

    Give your hardest question!

    What is the hardest question ?

    The question that takes forever to ask is the longest question.
    The question that takes the most water to soften is the hardest question.

    How can suffering be overcome?

    Your mind is a garden
    And you can bloom flowers
    Your thoughts are the seeds
    And your joy is the showers

    lobster
  • ShoshinShoshin No one in particular Nowhere Special Veteran

    @sova said:

    The question that takes the most water to soften is the hardest question.

    Hmm and what question is that ?

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    I smell a lot of Bovine scatology here... someone trying to be mystically clever and failing.

    Dysmally.

    @Sova, what exactly is your point, in this exercise?

  • sovasova delocalized fractyllic harmonizing Veteran

    @federica said:
    I smell a lot of Bovine scatology here... someone trying to be mystically clever and failing.

    Dysmally.

    @Sova, what exactly is your point, in this exercise?

    Save energy.

    @Shoshin said:

    @sova said:

    The question that takes the most water to soften is the hardest question.

    Hmm and what question is that ?

    Depends on one's particular conditioning, don't you find? If the natural state of the mind is unobstructed, what gives your mind the most "solidness" ? Likely for many of us it is the thought of permanence, or the conceptual framework of permanence that anticipates structures that are built from compounded/multiclasped phenomena lasting as if they were suitable perches for ever and ever a men.

    Permanence is therefore probably the biggest hard question, and this could be paralleled with the Buddha's speech when he states that "Of all the footprints and trackprints, the impression left by the elephant is supreme, likewise of all the various topics and subjects of meditation, contemplation of death leaves the deepest impression" -- an always untimely transition unless we accept its inevitability and seek refuge in abodes more permanent than flesh and blood.

    Is the mind rigid and inflexible? Is it pliant and gatherable? Is it diluted and scattered? Is it collected like a dew drop?

    The toughest/hardest concept to wear out
    is the one that assumes

    For on the basis of unsupporting information
    the assuming mind arises
    the assuming mind that separates
    the waves of experience from the mind experiencing
    and draws lines of identity
    where mere functionality meets sensuality

    It takes courage to ask, "who am i?"

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    No it doesn't.
    It takes courage to find out.

    lobster
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    @sova said:

    @federica said:
    I smell a lot of Bovine scatology here... someone trying to be mystically clever and failing.

    Dysmally.

    @Sova, what exactly is your point, in this exercise?

    Save energy.

    QED. Bovine Scatology.

    "A Fool is known by a multitude of words".

  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    @sova said:
    If the natural state of the mind is unobstructed, what gives your mind the most "solidness" ? Likely for many of us it is the thought of permanence

    So are you saying that by answering the hardest questions you are attempting to help us cope with our inner notions of permanence? I’d think that people need to be open to that... that it should be questions from the heart that are being answered, and not just questions as puzzles.

    The toughest/hardest concept to wear out
    is the one that assumes

    An interesting point, but if you have to keep wearing out concepts to reach a state of dispassion, then you will likely be busy for quite a long time. The mind’s concept generation machine is of near infinite ingenuity.

    personShoshinlobster
  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran

    Give your hardest question! :D

    If I am
    so smart (allegedly) ...
    Why aren't I enlightened ...

  • JeroenJeroen Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter Netherlands Veteran

    @lobster said:

    Give your hardest question! :D

    If I am
    so smart (allegedly) ...
    Why aren't I enlightened ...

    Well as I understand it, enlightenment is something beyond the mind. So being smart doesn’t necessarily help, rather it hinders because you are more entranced by the mind and have more difficulty letting go of it.

  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator

    Given that I think @sova is just going through a minor phase of being a bit of a smartass, and that the erratic and cryptic responses haven't really done anything to either endear him to people or address the point of the thread (which seemed, and still seems vague, aimless and pointless) I think the most favourable option now would just be to quietly shut the door on this one, and go about our business of just being Mindful, in the Moment and Attentive.

    Thanks to all who contributed responses and input.

    And @sova? Think twice, before posting once, ok? ;)

    lobsterKundo
This discussion has been closed.