In this put up, you’ll discover a choice from Going Through the Mystery’s One Hundred Questions. Also, a couple of years again, whereas I used to be within the midst of translating and commenting on these outdated circumstances, I gave a discuss this and included some excerpts from the awakening story of an unbelievable woke up girl from the twentieth century, Yaeko Iwasaki. You can discover the unedited model in The Three Pillars of Zen, “Part VI Yaeko Iwasaki’s Enlightenment Letters to Harada-roshi and his Comments.” Highly advisable and inspirational.
You can discover the audio recording of the discuss over on my Patreon website, together with an advert free model of this very put up.
When I bought to enhancing my feedback of Going Through the Mystery for the ultimate model, it simply didn’t work to cite as a lot from Three PIllars as I had executed within the discuss, so under you received’t discover the Yaeko Iwasaki materials. The two variations work, textual content and discuss, collectively effectively, appears to me.
Enjoy!
Click right here to assist my Zen instructing apply at Patreon of which translations and writings like this are one side. You may even discover an commercial free model of this put up there.
Question 18: What Conditions “No Place Not Known”?
Yuantong requested: “Prajna and ignorance. What conditions ‘no-place not-known’?”
Wansong replied: “Do not slander another’s good.”
Linquan’s Verse
Do not slander one other’s good
A skillful clarification is just not equal to the direct approach
Just speaking can lower off the refined thriller
Then see the thoughts contriving the unproduced
Towering, towering, flying, flying self-thus religion
Sweep by means of the useless leaves of previous positions
Commentary
Juxtaposed with prajna and ignorance, Yuantong asks what situations 無所不知, no place not identified, aka, omniscience.
Today, inside a detailed teacher-student relationship, Yuantong would possibly hear, “Oh my goodness, you are so in your head!”
I can nonetheless really feel the sting of the verbal blows dished out by Katagiri Roshi to the younger Dosho. With unhappiness in his eyes, seemingly questioning if he was losing his life with college students like me, he mutter nearly to himself, “That’s just your thinking. Always”.
Wansong begins his an historic scolding by stating that asking about omniscience, performing like he doesn’t know, is itself slander of Yuantong’s authentic inheritance.
Linquan takes it from there, saying that speaking about “no-place not-known” is a betrayal of the thriller.
But, fortunately, we aren’t left there.
Linquan factors his index finger straight on the moon: “Towering, towering, flying, flying self-thus faith.”
“Self-thus” is the key phrase right here with “faith” slathered on for good measure. Towering, towering, 兀兀, initially referred to a desk mountain and now means “determined,” “unmoving,” or “steadfast.” Dogen additionally useds this binomial, for instance, in his “Healing Point of Zazen, along with 地, meaning “earth” or “ground,” so the phrase is translated as “steadfast sitting,” or “fixed sitting.” This phrase is a vital instructing in Dogen Zen. “You should,” says Dogen,
examine and obtain the genuine transmission of steadfast sitting. This is the thorough examine of steadfast sitting transmitted within the buddha approach.
Linquan, although, quite than pair “towering, towering,” 兀兀, with 地, “ground,” pairs towering with “flying, flying,” 騰騰, for a way more dynamic expression.
In trendy Chinese, the entire sentence, “Towering, towering, flying, flying self-thus faith,” appears like this: wùwù téngténg xìn zìrú. But keep in mind, “Just talking can cut off the subtle mystery.”
The invitation right here is to embody the self-thus, towering and flying, and instantly, intimately “Sweep through the dead leaves of past positions.”
Dōshō Port started training Zen in 1977 and now co-teaches together with his spouse, Tetsugan Zummach Sensei, with Vine of Obstacles Zen, a web based coaching group. Dōshō obtained dharma transmission from Dainin Katagiri Rōshi and inka shōmei from James Myōun Ford Rōshi within the Harada-Yasutani lineage. He can also be the creator of Keep Me In Your Heart a While: The Haunting Zen of Dainin Katagiri. Dōshō’s translation and commentary on The Record of Empty Hall: One Hundred Classic Koans, was printed in 2021 (Shambhala). His third e-book, Going Through the Mystery’s One Hundred Questions, is now obtainable. Click right here to assist the instructing apply of Dōshō Rōshi.
