Some Zen koans (edited)
Mumonkan -- The Gateless Gate, Case 18:
A monk asked Tozan, "What is Buddha?"
Tozan answered, "Three pounds of flax!"
Case 21:
A monk asked Ummon,"What is Buddha?"
Ummon answered him, kanshiketsu (dry shitstick).
Case 37:
A monk asked Joshu, "With what intention did Bodhidharma come to China?"(#)
Joshu answered, "The oak tree in the front garden."
Hekiganroku -- Blue Cliff Record, Case 7:
A monk asked Hogen, "I, Echo, ask you, Master. What is Buddha?"
Hogen said, "You are Echo."
Case 39:
A monk asked Unmon, "What is the Pure Dharma-body (Dharmakaya(##))?"
Unmon said, "A flower fence around a restroom"
Case 77:
A monk asked Unmon, "What is meant by the pronouncement 'to go beyond the Buddha and the patriarchs'?"
Unmon said, "Rice cake."
Case 82:
A monk asked Dairyu, "The phenomenal body perishes. What is the Dharma-body (Dharmakaya) which remains solid?"
Dairyu said, "The autumn foliage of the mountains spreads like brocade; the water in the valley remains blue as indigo."
Some of these exchanges are trapped into the Zen lingo and method. But, so far as I can see, they make good sense. It seems like, one of the interlocutors has at least some intellectual understanding of the Sutras (sayings of the Buddha) and Shastras (sayings of the Patriarchs, i.e., commentaries provided by wise and learned scholars, monks, and so on). He know that those texts point to the ultimate reality. But the Sutras and the Shastras are still words, rather than reality, a map rather than the terrain. They are still but a finger pointing to the Moon and there is always risk to mistake a finger (pointing to the moon) for the moon itself. So, the monk asks, what goes beyond words.
The masters reply that what really matters is the direct experience of reality. In essence, they say "Eat your cake and drink your tea." Now, if you drink and eat with attention, that's divine, that's the ultimate experience.
The Zen approach is very non-dualistic . It is not like the ultimate reality is outside of this world. Rather, the ultimate reality is just this world, the world of the ten thousand things (including a rice cake, an oak tree, a shit stick, and all the reats) seen in the right way, without any illusions and delusions. As the famous Heart Sutra says:
Shunyata is only form
form is only Shunyata.
Shunyata is not different than form
form is not different than Shunyata.
In this fragment, the term "Shunyata" (usually translated as "emptiness") points to the ultimate reality (or, better, to the reality seen from the ultimate point of view; i.e., point of view of awakening), while the term "form" designates one of the (kinds of) elements constituting conventional or relative reality (or better, reality seen from the conventional or relative point of view). So, we might say, there is only one reality. Seen from the absolute or ultimate point of view, it is Shunyata (or, as we might say in the West, it is Divine); seen from a relative (or conventional) point of view, it is "the ten thousand things(*)" around us.
At least, that's how I understand these koans.
(And I hope I am not leading sentient beings astray
or, like Hiakujo's fox, I will be reborn at least 500 times(**).)
Now, I have just fed my dogs
time to take them for a roam.
______
(#) "With what intention did Bodhidharma come to China?" -- Bodhidharma is the legendary First Patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism, who according to the myth, crossed the sea on a bamboo raft and brought the true insight from India to China. The monk is asking about the ultimate truth expressed by buddhist teachings. The master points to the ordinary things (e.g., the oak tree) as instantiations of this truth.
(##) According to the doctrine of Trikaya (=three bodies) accepted by Mahayana (=Great Vehicle) Buddhism, the term "Buddha" may refer to three "things" (or bodies of the Buddha):
Dharmakaya, i.e., the body of truth, is hard to recognize "body" pervading the entire universe and everything in it. In this sense, everything is Buddha, as the historical Shakyamuni Buddha realized when he had his Great Awakening (Annutara Samyak Sambhodi). So far as I can see, all of the above koans deal with Dharmakaya.
Nirmanakaya, i.e., the body of transformation (or emanation), refers to the historical Buddha Shakyamuni. By extension, it also refers to any deeply spiritually awakened being. So, for example, in Tibetan (Vajrayana) tradition, this term is used to refer to any reborn and deeply awakened Master (=Tulku).
Sambogakaya, i.e., the body of joy, refers to the blissful state reached at the moment of awakening.
Scholars point to similarities between the Buddhist trinity and Christian trinity.
(*) "The ten thousand things" is a taoist expression that has been adopted by the Chinese Ch'an Masters. As the Tao Te Ching says (in the very first few verses):
The Tao that can be told
is not the true eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the true eternal Name.
The Unnamed (Unnamable) is the eternally real
origin of heavens and earth.
Naming is the mother
of the ten thousand things.
Two great stanzas, I think (and some commentators observe that the rest of Tao Te Ching is but elucidation of what the opening stanzas mean). They point to the fact that the reality of things has grounding both in the eternal ultimate unnamable Tao but also in our conceptualizations (naming) of the Reality.
(**) The Case 2 of "Mumonkan" goes as follows:
Whenever Hyakujo delivered a Zen lecture, an old man was always there with the monks listening to it; and when they left the Hall, so did he. One day, however, he remained behind, and Hyakujo asked him,"Who are you?"
The old man replied, "I am not a human being, but in the far distant past, when the Kashapa Buddha (the Sixth Buddha of the Seven Ancient Buddhas) preached in this world, I was the head monk in this mountain area. On one occasion a monk asked me whether an enlightened man could fall again under the law of karma (cause and effect), and I answered that he could not. Thus I became a fox for 500 rebirths and am still a fox. I beg you to release me from this condition through your Zen words."
Then he asked Hyakujo,"Is an enlightened man subject to the law of karma?" Hyakujo answered, "An awakened person is one with the law of Karma."
At the words of Hyakujo the old man was enlightened, and said with a bow, "I am now released from rebirth as a fox and my body will be found on the other side of the mountain. May I request that you bury me as a dead monk?"
The next day Hyakujo had the Karmadana, or deacon, beat the clapper and he informed the monks that after the midday meal there would be a funeral service for a dead monk. "No one was sick or died," wondered the monks. "What does our Roshi mean?" After they had eaten, Hyakujo led them to the foot of a rock on the furthest side of the mountain, and with his staff poked the dead body of a fox and had it ritually cremated.
In the evening Hyakujo gave a talk to the monks and told them this story of the law of Karma. Upon hearing the story, Obaku asked Hyakujo, "You said that because a long time ago an old Zen master gave a wrong answer he became a fox for 500 rebirths. But suppose every time he answered he had not made a mistake, what would have happened then?" Hyakujo replied, "Just come here to me, and I will tell you the answer!" Obaku then went up to Hyakujo--and slapped the teacher's face. Hyakujo, clapping his hands and laughing, exclaimed, "I thought the Persian had a red beard, but here is another one with a red beard!"
Mumon's Comment:
"The enlightened man is not subject to Karma." How can this answer make the monk a fox? "The enlightened man is not free from (is one with) the law of karma." How can this answer release him from his fox's life? If you have one eye in regard to this, then you understand Hyakujo's (the old man's) dramatic 500 rebirths.
Mumon's Verse:
Free from karma or subject to it,
They are two sides of the same die.
Subject to karma or free from it,
Both are irredeemable errors.
Incidentally, in Chinese mythology, a fox may represent a ghost, especially, a spirit who is a trickster.