I’m not a fan of Koan’s myself and not sure how effective they are anymore what with all the books and such explaining them. Which totally misses the intention. Having answers to the unanswerable is a very western objective measuring mind kind of thinking thing to do.

Having no desire to be liked or understood, still a times thin skinned…. feels like a kind of Koan  🙂

Thanks Anita you have a wonderful way with words and its helpful to see what I attempt to work through reflected back so succinctly.

Though I was taken aback by Tommy’s tone for a moment (a old wound of not being seen or understood showed up) I wasn’t offended.

As we were referencing a Zen Koan, after taking the moment, I had to laugh as ‘BS’ is actually a appropriate reply. A Zen master would have no doubt ‘slapped‘ both of us. If I understand correctly the Koan’s are paradoxical and intentionally frustrating the idea being to break (slap) the hold  of the grasping measuring mind or something…  the imagined Zen Master just slapped me again.  🙂

Tommy’s mention of monkey mind caused me to pause. My process of ‘sitting in a Koan’ (Paradox, dualism) with free flow of thoughts (slowed down by typing them out) actually calms the monkey as it tends to end in silence. But that’s my process and I see why it might find it ‘to much’.

Hi Tommy

I’ve been pondering what you wrote – “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

Being a Zen Koan I suspect were not to answer it but sit in it. The first thing I notice is the same frustration, what’s the point. A strong indication that I’m sitting in the temporal measuring mind and that the desire for ‘enlightenment’ was/is a quest to avoid pain cover up fear and anxiety.

Is it possible to sit in the Koan without desire without a goal or even answers?
“Attending completely, listening with all your heart, with all your brain, with all your senses? If you are so completely attending there is nothing more. That is meditation.” – Krishnamurti

Meditation isn’t practice, isn’t concentration, isn’t focus, isn’t silence, isn’t stillness, isn’t passive, isn’t a goal… all such thoughts and measuring restrict attending?

“There is something beyond words, beyond all thought which time has not touched, which is the origin of all things. This is the origin of all things and therefore the most sacred, most holy, timeless.” – Krishnamurti

Sitting in the Koan, all things are an arising from and a return to… movement arising from and returning to stillness, language and measurement/judgment arising from and returning to silence, time arising and returning to the eternal now… Stillness, silence, eternity not a something to attain, but attend to…

Movement creates Life, Stillness Love… to be still yet still moving that is everything.

In the temporal measuring sphere of the left side of the brain we do not have words for something that is both stillness and movement, time and eternal (eternal that is not a measurement of time). As we drift to the right side of the brain, eyes ‘see’ the stillness in movement, movement in stillness… ears ‘hear’ the silence in language/thought/measurement… Self senses the eternal in the temporal, temporal in the enteral…

We return… chop wood, carry water… same temporal needs, but not the same doings…  Bitter sweet, the heart opens?

“These are just words, but if you live without fear, if you have understood knowledge, you have gone beyond sorrow, therefore you have this quality of love and compassion with its intelligence, and having laid the foundation then meditation is something marvelous, something that thought can never understand. Then only there is that which is timeless, most holy.” – Krishnamurti

Can we live without fear when it has defined our experience? Without such fear what role does belief, desire, right practice, knowledge, guru’s…. have? Do our beliefs, goals and desires reenforcing fear?

In the eternal fear has nowhere to take root…  The question arises Do we dare to ‘see’ Life as it Is? Is it possible to answer Yes without belief? Compassion bitter sweet…

Chop wood, carry water, engage in life… I don’t know Tommy I have my moments of  staring into space unable to sleep.

I try to notice when I’m in my temporal, measuring judging, dualistic self and then remind myself of the return from which all arose, even if for only a moment. (LOL till I ‘measure’ the moment as a measurement of time, sending me right back into it. no wonder the Buddha laughs)

Allan Watts viewed the temporal sphere of experience as a playground (game) for the self/ego and eternal Home. Perhaps the trick is the realization that the two arn’t separate states of being.

I have always found ‘The Heart Sutra’ difficult. I think that is intentional as it pushes the mind towards silence, towards a  ‘knowing’ experience.. So I feel that its related to the reflections on the ‘blank canvas’

The Heart Sutra

The Bodhisattva of Compassion,
When he meditated deeply,
Saw the emptiness of all five skandhas (senses)
And sundered the bonds that caused him suffering.

Here then,
Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form.
Form is only emptiness,
Emptiness only form.

Feeling, thought, and choice,
Consciousness itself,
Are the same as this.
All things are by nature void
They are not born or destroyed
Nor are they stained or pure
Nor do they wax or wane

So, in emptiness, no form,
No feeling, thought, or choice,
Nor is there consciousness.
No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;
No color, sound, smell, taste, touch,
Or what the mind takes hold of,
Nor even act of sensing.

No ignorance or end of it,
Nor all that comes of ignorance;
No withering, no death,
No end of them.
Nor is there pain, or cause of pain,
Or cease in pain, or noble path
To lead from pain;
Not even wisdom to attain!
Attainment too is emptiness.

So know that the Bodhisattva
Holding to nothing whatever,
But dwelling in Prajna wisdom,
Is freed of delusive hindrance,
Rid of the fear bred by it,
And reaches clearest Nirvana.
All Buddhas of past and present,
Buddhas of future time,
Using this Prajna wisdom,
Come to full and perfect vision.

Hear then the great dharani,
The radiant peerless mantra,
The Prajnaparamita
Whose words allay all pain;
Hear and believe its truth!

Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!”

Into the gone, into the gone, into the gone beyond.
Into the gone completely beyond (beyond movement, time, language, measurement, duality..) the other shore, awaken.

I still find the “Blank White Canvas” funny. The museum paid $10,000 for it… Still I haven’t forgotten it.

There was another peace ‘White canvas with wet toilet paper”   The artist had thrown wet toilet paper onto a white canvas. I wonder now what the artist was feeling when they drew that out from the canvas.