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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780062510464 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | PerfectBound |
| Publication date: | 11/01/1995 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 196 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.58(w) x 8.46(h) x 0.52(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Journey
People ask for the road to Cold Mountain,
but no road reaches Cold Mountain.
Summer sky — still ice won't melt.
The sun comes out but gets obscured by mist.
Imitating me, where does that get you?
My mind isn't like yours.
When your mind is like mine
you can enter here.Hanshan
Which way
did you come from,
following dream paths at night,
while snow is still deep
in this mountain recess?Ryokan
It was the year 1953 and I had come to Kyoto to find a Zen master, but with no success as yet. While there, I renewed acquaintance with an American professor of philosophy Id first met while attending Dr. Suzuki's classes at Columbia University. He was a Fulbright exchange scholar and like myself was eager to savor monastery life.
This professor introduced me to the Kyoto Zen academic community, all of whom tried to dissuade us from entering a Zen monastery. "The monasteries are antiquated, the atmosphere cold, the training harsh, and most of the roshis narrow-minded religious zealots," they told us.
But having gotten the name of Zen master Soen Nakagawa from a Japanese acquaintance, we decided, despite their dire warnings, to write and ask if we could stay at his monastery for several weeks. He promptly replied, saying, "Yes, you may come for a week."
On the train to Mishima, where his monastery, Ryutaku-ji, was located, my friend and I composed a series ofphilosophical questions to "test" the roshi with. "If he answers these questions satisfactorily," we agreed, "let us stay the week; if not, let's leave the next day."
Nakagawa Roshi greeted us warmly upon our arrival, offering us the traditional Zen balm-tea. No sooner had we begun drinking than our questioning erupted. "Stop!" he commanded, throwing up a hand. "After you finish your tea and do zazen for a while, you may ask your questions."
Fair enough. "But how do we do zazen?" we asked. "We've never meditated before."
"Meditate any way you wish, only don't talk."
A monk attendant escorted us to the Buddha Hall and provided sitting cushions, then put a finger to his lips admonishing silence.
For what seemed like an eternity, we thrashed about wildly in a vain effort to cope with the pain and still our restless thoughts. To throw up our hands in despair and stand on our feet would be an admission of defeat, and such a display of weakness might suddenly terminate our stay. So we endured with gritted teeth. At last the monk appeared and mercifully ended our ordeal. "The roshi is waiting for you in his room," he announced with a sardonic smile. We limped to his quarters. The hour was late and we were exhausted. Not having eaten all day, we relished the bowl of rice placed in front of each of us as though it were gourmet food. The roshi, watching us and smiling benignly, said, "Now for the questions."
"No questions, roshi! All we want to do is go to bed."
"Very good idea, because we get up at 3 in the morning."
And that ended my first practical lesson in Zen, a lesson I have never forgotten.
Philip Kapleau
He was offered the whole world,
He declined and turned away.He did not write poetry,
He lived poetry before it existed.
He did not speak of philosophy,
He cleaned up the dung philosophy left behind.He had no address:
He lived in a ball of dust playing with the universe.Jung Kwung
Ox
Among other creatures this is what I was.
Abilities depend on the realm; realm also depends on
abilities.
At birth I forgot completely by which path I came.
I don't know, these years, which school of monk I am.Ikkyu
Awakened within a dream,
I fall into my own arms.
What kept you so long?Lou Hartman
Once seventeen monks from Szechwan were traveling, seeking the Way and trying to find a master. Before seeing master Yangshan, they spent the night at his monastery guest house and they began talking about the famous flag story of the Sixth Ancestor. Each of them admitted that they didn't understand it.
Miaoxin, who was the director of the guest house, overheard them talking, and said to herself, "What a pity! These seventeen blind donkeys are wasting their straw sandals. They haven't seen the buddha-dharma, even in their dreams."
A worker heard her comments and told the monks what she'd said. Instead of resenting her comments, the seventeen monks felt humbled. They straightened their robes, burned incense, bowed, and asked Miaoxin for instruction.
The nun said, "Come closer!"
As the monks came forward, she said, "It's not that the wind moves; it's not that the flag moves; it's not that the mind moves."
When they heard this, all seventeen monks understood. They bowed in gratitude and became her students. Then they went back to Szechwan, without even talking to Yangshan.
Some old papers were recently excavated
from the ruins of an ancient city
in Eastern Turkestan.
The scholars say that they contain
the thought of Bodhidharma,
and they have been busy turning out commentaries,
both in the horizontal writing of the West
and the vertical lines of the Orient.
Who knows exactly the thought of the blue-eyed monk?
Some imitate his zazen and gaze at the wall
until the sun goes down.
Hey — you are all wrong!Nyogen Senzaki
Rags and again rags,
wearing rags all my life —
I somehow get food at the side of the road;
my hut is left to overgrown mugwort.
Gazing at the moon all night I chant poems.
Getting lost in flowers I don't come home.
Since leaving my nourishing community,
mistakenly I've become this hobbled old horse.Ryokan
In winter
the seven stars
walk upon a crystal forestSoen Nakagawa
We're here to get our present model repainted a little...