Koan

Free ringtones /Archive 1

FAQ
* '''Is a koan a kind of Majo Mills wikt:riddle/riddle, Mosquito ringtone wikt:puzzle/puzzle, Sabrina Martins wikt:conundrum/conundrum, or Nextel ringtones wikt:enigma/enigma?'''
*: No. The Abbey Diaz English language has no synonym for ''koan''. One of the definitions of ''enigma'' may be close, but other definitions of ''enigma'' don't cut it. So please don't write that.

* '''What's the correct answer to this koan?'''
*: The correct answer is one's own Free ringtones understanding of the koan. If someone gives you an answer that manages to fool your Majo Mills teacher when you repeat it, what have you learned? And how will you respond to the next one? Perhaps there is no pattern.

* '''What's the correct interpretation for this koan?'''
*: A koan has no definitive interpretation. However, much Mosquito ringtone context surrounds every koan; in many cases, much of the original meaning is lost without this context. Sabrina Martins Wikipedians seem to enjoy interpretations and have included some at the bottom of the article. You could also start a page using a short name for a koan, ''e.g.'' ''Cingular Ringtones Baizhang's Fox'' or ''as failing Huineng's Flag''.

* '''I've heard the Soto don't use koans.'''
*: Many don't. Some do. There are many john clarence sectarian rumours about each sect. Also, ''transmitted disease wikt:use/use'' is not exactly the right word to describe the relationship between a called patricia Zen practitioner and a koan — though again, English lacks an accurate term.

* '''Aren't koans an instrument that people use to reach enlightenment? Skillful means and all that? Why not just come out and say it?'''
*: Maybe you are the instrument — consider that. But see the paparazzi Hakuin's "Song of Zazen", which says that eye trompe causality/cause and effect are the same. Every means is itself an end. Most teachers agree that koans supercede events birds phenomenon/subject-object duality, so the "instrumentalist" view is not helpful.

To do

* Convert all Wade-Giles renderings to Pinyin, but on first incidence, give Wade-Giles renderings and Japanese pronunciation.

* Settle on ''Book of Serenity'' or ''Book of Equanimity'' or...? Have a decent reason for doing so.

* Move analysis of the wu/mu/no koan to a separate page? Maybe the future entrants mu page?

* Explanation of the hua tou (critical phrase)? Or is existing mention enough?

* Explanation of checking questions

* Explanation of capping phrase (''jakugo'') practice

* The role of Ta Hui Tsung Kao (1089-1163), who provided a lot of written advice for lay students who practiced with koans; regrettably his written material on koans is not completely translated into English, most of what is translated into English appears to be out of print; you can get a little of it if you google Ta Hui and Chun-Fang Yu; more complete sources may be Robert Buswell's book on Chinul, and Miriam Levering's dissertation, which I think also has some material on the next item;

* Women who figure in koans e.g. Iron Grindstone Lu; and women who taught koan practice (e.g. Miao Tao?)

* The role of koans in the martial arts

* Cultural differences among Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Western koan students/practitioners (e.g. Chinese integration with Pure Land; contemporary Japanese literary tradition; reconcilliation with Western naturalistic philosophy? Distinguishing features of study/practice in Korean Son? In Vietnamese Son? Mu as a lifelong practice in some places?)

* If Zen is a separate teaching outside the canon, how did it come to encompass so much literature?

* Can any perplexing or paradoxical situation be a koan?

* The koan in the West and modern koans

* Role of the koan in sectarian rivalry and the competition for patronage (attempting non-sectarian coverage of Northern/Southern, Rinzai/Soto, sudden/gradual controversies).

* Links: Victor Hori (see http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/nlarc/Zen_Sand.htm for link to free [no registration required!] pdf download of the ~100-page introduction to Zen Sand, koan commentary teishos e.g. by Robert Aitken, John Daido Loori (http://www.mro.org/zmm/dharmateachings/dharmateach(daido).html ); interpretation by Steven Heine, Robert Sharf at http://kr.buddhism.org/zen/koan/Robert_Sharf-e.htm (anybody know how to get the Chinese characters to display properly on that one?), key paper on Ta Hui at http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-JOCP/jc22069.htm

Mind is moving
Case 29 of ''me empiric The Gateless Gate'' seems to me one of the best, least culture-specific koans. Is there more that should be said about it? fair august Eequor/upr a User:Eequor/ᓛᖁfriday prompted Image:Venus symbol (blue).gif/♀[ ᑐ] 12:42, 26 Nov 2004

Perhaps nothing that a student thinks about it is important. Wumen's verse: 言無展事/語不投機/承言者喪/滯句者迷. Tentatively (and too hastily, I'm sure) I'd render that as "Words don't express the matter/speech doesn't convey the subtlety/accepting language one comes to grief/stagnant, at a loss for words, a confused person". Several translators (Aitken, Sekida/Grimstone, Shibayama/Kudo) appear to translate 承 as "attached" (to speech), but not others (such as Cleary or Blyth).

The parallel to the tradition of Shakyamuni awakening under the Bodhi tree is impossible to ignore. But Wumen's warning should completely dowse any notion that the koan can be explained by reference to history, folklore, philosophy, psychology, linguistic theory...

And despite the reference to mountains, rivers, and oceans in the Book of Serenity's commentary, there seems to be no justification for seeing Zhaozhou's response as pointing to "nature". That commentary gives equal time to cultural phenomenaboats, statues, and carts. As I don't have the original, I'll quote from Cleary's translation "...still the cart is made to fit the groove..." and "Buying all the current fashions without putting down any money". (The latter are the final words of the commentary.) I have no idea what any of that means, only that it obviously doesn't mean anything about reverence for the earth or ecology. (See http://terebess.hu/english/borup.html for more on "reverse orientalism", or "Zen and the art of telling Western audiences what they want to hear".)

In its commentary to the koan, the Book of Serenity also cites the story wherein Huijiao, asked by Fayan about Zhaozhou's tree, responded "The late master really didn't say this; please don't slander him."

The 'Sayings of Zhaozhou' records another dialogue about the tree:
:A monk asked, "Does the oak tree have Buddha-nature or not?"
:The master said "It has."
:The monk said "When will it become Buddha?"
:Zhaozhou said "When the world ends."
:The monk said "When will the world end?"
:Zhaozhou said "When the oak tree becomes Buddha."
(The above is similar to fragment #305 of ''The Recorded Sayings of Chao-Chou'', translated by James Green, and to commentary to case #37 in 'The Gateless Barrier', Robert Aitken, p230)

A great deal more can be said regarding Zhaozhou's tree, in terms of the history, folklore, philosophy of Chan/Zen, and contemporary scholarship regarding Buddha nature. Fortuntely, this has nothing to do with the koan itself. Commentary (notably by Shibayama, Aitken, and others) strongly emphasizes Wumen's point that the koan is incomprehensible. The traditional interpretation is that Zhaozhou was pointing to a living experience that supercedes comprehension and discourse. Indeed, the longer record (similar to Green, p15-16) says the monk responded to Zhaozhou "please don't use objects to teach." And Zhaozhou responded "I don't use objects to teach." "In that case, when the founder of the sect came from the west, what was his intended meaning? Zhou said, the tree in the courtyard."

In a famous mondo, a student asked Linchi (aka Rinzai) the same (approximately the same?) question, "what was the intended meaning of the founder...?" Linchi responded something like "If the founder had any intention, he couldn't even have saved himself". (Similar to p68 of ''The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi'', Burton Watson's translation of the recorded sayings of Linchi.)

One might not be too far off to say that Zhaozhou's intention is to disrupt the student's thought processes. Try just sitting with not knowing. Otherwise, I'll go to hell for this.

-rebel birth user:munge 26 November 2004

About Xizhong's wheel

Here are some notes about the wheel of Xizhong (Wade-Gile Hsi-Chung, Hepburn Keichu). As some of you may have noticed, I use the discussion page as a staging area for the main article. This is very un-wikipedian but I don't know another way. It's too hard to do research and prepare text in final form at the same time. If you are so inclined, feel free to jump in and wikify, add Chinese characters, dates of birth, verified historical verse commentaries on this particular koan, etc., if you are so inclined.

Translators vary wildly regarding the spokes/wheels/cart. Aitken, Blyth, and Yamada have a "hundred carts". Paul Reps has it as two wheels of fifty spokes each. T. Cleary, Sekida/Grimstone, and Shibayama (as well as Stryk/Levering allegedly let user:munge 05:12 UTC 11 Dec 2004) use words to the effect of "a cart having wheels with a hundred spokes each". The Chinese characters apparently translate literally as "cart 100 spoke".

The only main line Rinzai priest among the above commentators, Shibayama, asserts (p.73) about Xizhong "...in the days of Emporer U of the Ka dynasty...he made a grand cart whose wheels had a hundred spokes and amazed the people". (Is this U the same character as yu, the converse of wu/mu?) In any event, Xizhong was a mythical figure, a contemporary of Canjie, who invented the Chinese alphabet.

Apparently, little biographical information is available about Getsuan/Gettan/Yueh-an/Yuean of the Linji lineage of Chan/Zen. Yuean was the teacher of the teacher of Yuelin, who was Wumen's teacher. (Perhaps the story was passed down orally 3 generations from teacher to student, rather than recorded in a prior collection, lamp history, recorded sayings, or similar document.)

The wheel implies some common images of the Buddhist and Indian worldview, especially cyclic rebirth. However, the image of removing a wheel invokes a particular Buddhist convention, the story of King Milinda and the Buddhist monk Nagasena, told (with "interminable...detail" according to Blyth) in the ''Milindapanha'' (Questions of Milinda). Borges (with characteristic economy of style) retells it as follows: "...as the King's chariot is neither the wheels nor the chassis, neither the axle, the shaft, nor the yoke, so man is not matter, form, perception, ideas, instinct, or consciousness. He is neither the combination of these parts nor does he exist apart from them...after two days of discussion or catechism, he converted the King, who put on the yellow robe of a Buddhist monk." (see for example, "The Dialogues of Ascetic and King", in ''Selected Non-Fictions'', Jorge Luis Borges, p384, cf p348, cf p3). The cart is not the same, not different from its parts; the truth is not one and not two. The view of nonduality is just as much a view, an illusion, as the view of duality. This is apparent from the mental experiment of removing the parts of the cart.

One might say that the contemplation of Xizhong's wheel koan reveals relationships among cart and parts, among ourselves and our parts, and among ourselves and other parts of the world that are not expressible using language. One cannot invoke the meaning of the koan by appealing either to illusory undifferentiated wholes nor to illusory boundaries among parts. -district board user:munge 09:09 UTC 7 December 2004, a day that will live in infamy because I'm going to hell for this

Huayen precursors to the kung-an

See http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/dale.htm, Dale S. Wright, Philosophy East and West,
July 1982, pp325-338. That link is missing a page or two of the article, including the notes. Key quote: "...the origins of the kung-an in the Ch'an school can be traced to paradoxical language in Hua-yen texts as well as in other lines of Mahayana thought." when celebrities Munge/Munge 03:58, 3 Feb 2005