When your mind is raging
thoughts flowing, eddying
when you enter the zendo
what do you do in sitting?
Do you take your stick
and measure the water
to insure a safe fording,
or do you sit amid the stream
and let the flood
wash over and around you
dry and silent within?
A reflection on case 47 of the Iron Flute Koans
When your mind is raging
thoughts flowing, eddying
when you enter the zendo
what do you do in sitting?
Do you take your stick
and measure the water
to insure a safe fording,
or do you sit amid the stream
and let the flood
wash over and around you
dry and silent within?
A reflection on Case 36 of the Iron Flute Koans
In entering, do you arrive
or are you leaving.
In departing do you leave
or are you arriving.
Can the gate answer
or does it choose
to remain silent.
The mountain shouts
the answer but only
the river can hear it.
A reflection on case 30 of the Dogen’s Shobogenzo (The True Dharma Eye)
You are forever seeking
the path, as though
it will give you a sign.
Seeking the Buddha is good
but looking for him
is ultimate futility
for the eyes are incapable
of looking within.
A reflection on case 30 of the Mumonkan (the Gateless Gate Koans)
If you will mark your gate
what word will you use,
what for the door, what
for the window?
The gate knows quite well
what it is, as to door and window
and need no marking.
Even the fool knows
through each you
may enter the house,
but even the wise man
cannot tell you
how the house may enter you.
A reflection on case 46 of the Iron Flute Koans
When the master
calls for a novice
do you answer?
When the inkin
bell is struck
do you begin
or end zazen?
As you follow your breath
when do you leave
your body, and who
returns when you next inhale?
Search instead
for an answer
that has no question.
Who is the novice now?
A reflection on case 31 of the Iron Flute Koans
It is said that you can never go home again
presuming, of course, that you have left at some point.
The fallacy of this statement is apparent,
for there is often nothing preventing your return.
What would make the statement accurate
is that you can never go home again
to exactly the same home you left
for your leaving alters the place and your return
creates only a new status quo, it can’t restore the old one.
It is like this with rivers, the Buddhist knows,
you never step into the same river twice
for each steps has you greeting new water
and even the rock upon which you step
has microscopically eroded.
So feel free to go home again, for there is
much to be gained from returning to a place
that is so familiar, and yet which you have
never before actually visited.
If you find the answer
and rush to tell your teacher
why are you surprised
when he turns away from you,
saying that is yesterday’s answer.
If you want to impress your teacher
paint the answer
on the surface
of the raging river
or accept scorn
with equanimity.
If you go to a lecture
and listen carefully
will you become wise?
If you go to a hundred lectures
are you a hundred times wiser?
Where did the teacher find wisdom,
did he sit in endless lectures.
Watch him most carefully
is he not wise with sleeping,
and when eating, when he walks
to the lectern and from it?
Watch in silence
and find his wisdom.
If you want to ask
of the path, do so,
only without breaking
the silence of the zendo.
Seek the answer
in a library without books,
take sustenance
from an empty bowl.
Bodhi is a glittering gem
that cannot be seen
that cannot be held—
do not stumble over it.
