Userpic keywords sources:
Sometimes, you have what seems like a great idea, and then you realize what you've done to yourself.
That'd be me and the themed keywords for this account.
Because Flynn is quite obviously practicing from one of the Zen schools, and because I have a much easier time with Japanese phonetics than Chinese, where the Japanese versions of Chinese names exist, I've used them. Un-Japanified names are Taoists.
Hōkoji ⟷ Layman Pang
Reiun ⟷ Lingyun Zhiqin
Rinzai ⟷ Linji
Ummon ⟷ Yunmen Wenyan
Yoka Genkaku ⟷ Yongjia Xuanjue
Knock on the sky and listen to the sound
--Zen proverb, unsourced
As I travel in this limitless world
But do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.
--Dōgen
We bind ourselves to others.
Heedless of the dew
That marks our closing day,
We bind ourselves to others.
--Issa
The obstacle is the path.
--Zen proverb, unsourced
Wait. Spring will come.
Moonlit plum tree--
Wait,
Spring will come.
--Bashō
Things are just as they are.
If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
--Zen proverb, unsourced
Worlds without number
Hundreds of open flowers
all come from the one branch.
Look,
All their colors
appear in my garden.
I open the chattering gate,
and in the wind
I see
the spring sunlight.
Already it has reached
worlds without number.
--Sekiso
Give up remembrance.
Give up remembrance. What end is there to pure wind circling the earth?
--Hekiganroku (The Blue Cliff Record)
Whatever you do‚ don't wobble.
If you walk, just walk. If you sit, just sit. But whatever you do, don't wobble.
--Ummon
We become what we think.
Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.
--Gotama Buddha, Dhammapada, Ch 1
Our capacity for experience
We do not learn by experience, but by our capacity for experience.
--Gotama Buddha*
*This may be apocryphal. It sounds like it should be from the Dhammapada, but it's not, and a very similar saying crops up credited variously to James Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson (where it does not, in fact, appear--you'd think people would check these things), and to George Bernard Shaw.
We die‚ and we do not die.
We...after some years we will die. That will be the end of our life but if we just think that is our end of life that is wrong understanding. And if we think we do not die, that is also wrong understanding. We die and we do not die and that is right understanding.
--Shunryu Suzuki, Lecture on Posture
Sit in zazen, and break through.
Just stop your wandering,
Look penetratingly into your inherent nature,
And, concentrating your spiritual energy,
Sit in zazen
And break through.
--Bassui
Is that so?
The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbours as one living a pure life.
A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.
This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.
In great anger the parent went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.
After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbours and everything else he needed.
A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth - the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.
The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back.
Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?"
--Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings
Joy follows them like a shadow
We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.
--Gotama Buddha, Dhammapada, Ch 1*
*This is just a variant translation of the same section quoted above.
The past is already past
The present does not stay
The future has not come
The past is already past.
Don't try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don't try to touch it.
From moment to moment.
The future has not come;
Don't think about it
Beforehand.
Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There's no filth to be cleansed.
With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.
When you can be like this,
You've completed
The ultimate attainment.
--Hōkoji
A single step
A tree of many arm spans is produced from a tiny sprout.
A tower of nine stories is raise from a pile of earth.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
--Laozi, Tao Te Ching, 64
Move and the way will open.
--Zen proverb, unsourced
Returning to the world of passions
From the world of passions returning to the world of passions:
There is a moment's pause.
If it rains, let it rain, if the wind blows, let it blow.
--Ikkyū
How close the truth is
All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas.
As with water and ice, there is no ice without water;
apart from sentient beings, there are no Buddhas.
Not knowing how close the truth is,
we seek it far away
--what a pity!
--Hakuin
When the student is ready, a teacher will appear.
--Zen proverb, unsourced
When the mind is at peace
Neither holy nor wise
Just an ordinary fellow
When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy or wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.
--Hōkoji
One who is skilled in goodness
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
--Gotama Buddha, Metta Sutra
Passing unnoticed in the world.
Always working alone, always walking alone,
The enlightened one walks the free way of Nirvana
With melody that is old and clear in spirit
And naturally elegant in style,
But with body that is tough and bony,
Passing unnoticed in the world.
--Yoka Genkaku
Walking is Zen.
Walking is Zen,
Sitting, too, is Zen.
If I speak or am silent,
Tarry or hasten:
Everything, in its true nature,
Is stillness.
--Yoka Genkaku
Unfettered at last
Unfettered at last, a traveling monk,
I pass the old Zen barrier.
Mine is a traceless stream-and-cloud life,
Of these mountains, which shall be my home?
--Manan
A world of struggle
A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle
--Issa
White hair, after all, can never change.
Mountain fruit drop in the rain
and grass insects sing under my oil lamp.
White hair, after all, can never change
as yellow gold cannot be created.
If you want to know how to get rid
of age, its sickness, study nonbeing.
--Wang Wei
Ephemeral life though it be
This is the habit of our mind.
We pray for our life of tomorrow,
Ephemeral life though it be;
This is the habit of our mind
That passed away yesterday.
--Ikkyu
If you want to be free...
Lively and buoyant
If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it,
You turn away from it all the more.
--Rinzai
Drawn by its beauty, I lose myself.
Contemplating the clear moon
Reflecting a mind empty as the open sky -
Drawn by its beauty,
I lose myself
In the shadows it casts.
--Dōgen
The whole world is your own self.
Analyze the ten thousand things
Whether you are going or staying or sitting or lying down,
the whole world is your own self.
You must find out
whether the mountains, rivers, grass, and forests
exist in your own mind or exist outside it.
Analyze the ten thousand things,
dissect them minutely,
and when you take this to the limit
you will come to the limitless,
when you search into it you come to the end of search,
where thinking goes no further and distinctions vanish.
When you smash the citadel of doubt,
then the Buddha is simply yourself.
--Daikaku
Not a shadow of doubt do I cherish.
For thirty years I have been in search of the swordsman;
Many a time have I watched the leaves decay and the branches shoot!
Ever since I saw for once the peaches in bloom,
Not a shadow of doubt do I cherish.
--Reiun
Calm in the midst of activity
Happy in the midst of hardship
Calm in quietude is not real calm;
when you can be calm in the midst of activity,
this is the true state of nature.
Happiness in comfort is not real happiness;
when you can be happy in the midst of hardship,
then you see the true potential of the mind.
--Hong Zicheng
The most fleeting thought is timeless
Mind set free in the dharma-realm,
I sit at the moon-filled window
Watching the mountains with my ears,
Hearing the stream with open eyes.
Each molecule preaches perfect law,
Each moment chants true sutra:
The most fleeting thought is timeless,
A single hair's enough to stir the sea.
--Ryushu
One who conquers himself
One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield.
--Gotama Buddha, Dhammapada, Ch 8
What is this mind?
What is it that hears?
What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for Self-realization.
Continue to ask yourself:
What is it that hears?
--Bassui
Always the world is ablaze.
Can there be joy and laughter
When always the world is ablaze?
Enshrouded in darkness
Should you not seek a light?
--Gotama Buddha, Dhammapada, Ch 11
A skillful leader does not use force.
A skillful leader does not use force.
A skillful fighter does not feel anger.
A skillful master does not engage the opponent.
A skillful employer remains low.
This is called the power in not contending.
This is called the strength to employ others.
This is called the highest emulation of Nature.
--Laozi, Tao Te Ching, 68
Entrust oneself to change.
Natural, reckless, correct skill;
Yesterday's clarity is today's stupidity
The universe has dark and light, entrust oneself to change
One time, shade the eyes and gaze afar at the road of heaven.
--Ikkyū
I forget the days as they pass.
In the awakened eye
Mountains and rivers
Completely disappear.
The eye of delusion
Gazes upon
Deep fog and clouds.
Alone in my zazen
I forget the days
As they pass.
The wisteria has grown
Thick over the eaves
Of my hut.
--Musō
If you meet the Buddha‚ kill him.
--Rinzai
We ourselves must walk the path.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
--Gotama Buddha
A heart like Never-despising Buddha
In the morning, bowing to all;
In the evening, bowing to all.
Respecting others is my only duty--
Hail to the Never-despising Bodhisattva.
In heaven and earth he stands alone.
A real monk
Needs
Only one thing--
a heart like
Never-despising Buddha.
--Ryōkan
"The earth is my witness."
As Siddhartha who had become the Buddha meditated beneath the bodhi tree, Mara, the Lord of Illusion, challenged him with all the fears and temptations of the world, that he might not pierce the veil and reach true understanding. But the arrows of Mara's demon armies turned to flowers before the Buddha, while his beautiful daughters were as old women, and the Buddha was unmoved by anything with which Mara confronted him.
Unwilling to give up, Mara demanded, "Who will testify that you are worthy to achieve supreme enlightenment?"
"The earth is my witness," said the Buddha. He reached to down to touch the ground with the tips of his fingers, and the very world itself rumbled and shook in reply.
Mara at last acknowledged defeat and withdrew, and thus did the knowledge of the Buddha first enter the world.
Come face to face with what you are
You find a flower half-buried in leaves,
And in your eye its very fate resides.
Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;
Soon enough, you'll sweep petals from the floor.
Terrible to love the lovely so,
To count your own years, to say "I'm old,"
To see a flower half-buried in leaves
And come face to face with what you are.
--Hanshan
The Master struck him a blow.
Someone is always getting hit in koans, especially the ones that feature Rinzai.
That'd be me and the themed keywords for this account.
Because Flynn is quite obviously practicing from one of the Zen schools, and because I have a much easier time with Japanese phonetics than Chinese, where the Japanese versions of Chinese names exist, I've used them. Un-Japanified names are Taoists.
Hōkoji ⟷ Layman Pang
Reiun ⟷ Lingyun Zhiqin
Rinzai ⟷ Linji
Ummon ⟷ Yunmen Wenyan
Yoka Genkaku ⟷ Yongjia Xuanjue
Knock on the sky and listen to the sound
--Zen proverb, unsourced
As I travel in this limitless world
But do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.
--Dōgen
We bind ourselves to others.
Heedless of the dew
That marks our closing day,
We bind ourselves to others.
--Issa
The obstacle is the path.
--Zen proverb, unsourced
Wait. Spring will come.
Moonlit plum tree--
Wait,
Spring will come.
--Bashō
Things are just as they are.
If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
--Zen proverb, unsourced
Worlds without number
Hundreds of open flowers
all come from the one branch.
Look,
All their colors
appear in my garden.
I open the chattering gate,
and in the wind
I see
the spring sunlight.
Already it has reached
worlds without number.
--Sekiso
Give up remembrance.
Give up remembrance. What end is there to pure wind circling the earth?
--Hekiganroku (The Blue Cliff Record)
Whatever you do‚ don't wobble.
If you walk, just walk. If you sit, just sit. But whatever you do, don't wobble.
--Ummon
We become what we think.
Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it. Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.
--Gotama Buddha, Dhammapada, Ch 1
Our capacity for experience
We do not learn by experience, but by our capacity for experience.
--Gotama Buddha*
*This may be apocryphal. It sounds like it should be from the Dhammapada, but it's not, and a very similar saying crops up credited variously to James Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson (where it does not, in fact, appear--you'd think people would check these things), and to George Bernard Shaw.
We die‚ and we do not die.
We...after some years we will die. That will be the end of our life but if we just think that is our end of life that is wrong understanding. And if we think we do not die, that is also wrong understanding. We die and we do not die and that is right understanding.
--Shunryu Suzuki, Lecture on Posture
Sit in zazen, and break through.
Just stop your wandering,
Look penetratingly into your inherent nature,
And, concentrating your spiritual energy,
Sit in zazen
And break through.
--Bassui
Is that so?
The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbours as one living a pure life.
A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was with child.
This made her parents angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.
In great anger the parent went to the master. "Is that so?" was all he would say.
After the child was born it was brought to Hakuin. By this time he had lost his reputation, which did not trouble him, but he took very good care of the child. He obtained milk from his neighbours and everything else he needed.
A year later the girl-mother could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth - the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket.
The mother and father of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask forgiveness, to apologize at length, and to get the child back.
Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: "Is that so?"
--Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings
Joy follows them like a shadow
We are formed and molded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them.
--Gotama Buddha, Dhammapada, Ch 1*
*This is just a variant translation of the same section quoted above.
The past is already past
The present does not stay
The future has not come
The past is already past.
Don't try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don't try to touch it.
From moment to moment.
The future has not come;
Don't think about it
Beforehand.
Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There's no filth to be cleansed.
With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.
When you can be like this,
You've completed
The ultimate attainment.
--Hōkoji
A single step
A tree of many arm spans is produced from a tiny sprout.
A tower of nine stories is raise from a pile of earth.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
--Laozi, Tao Te Ching, 64
Move and the way will open.
--Zen proverb, unsourced
Returning to the world of passions
From the world of passions returning to the world of passions:
There is a moment's pause.
If it rains, let it rain, if the wind blows, let it blow.
--Ikkyū
How close the truth is
All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas.
As with water and ice, there is no ice without water;
apart from sentient beings, there are no Buddhas.
Not knowing how close the truth is,
we seek it far away
--what a pity!
--Hakuin
When the student is ready, a teacher will appear.
--Zen proverb, unsourced
When the mind is at peace
Neither holy nor wise
Just an ordinary fellow
When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy or wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.
--Hōkoji
One who is skilled in goodness
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
--Gotama Buddha, Metta Sutra
Passing unnoticed in the world.
Always working alone, always walking alone,
The enlightened one walks the free way of Nirvana
With melody that is old and clear in spirit
And naturally elegant in style,
But with body that is tough and bony,
Passing unnoticed in the world.
--Yoka Genkaku
Walking is Zen.
Walking is Zen,
Sitting, too, is Zen.
If I speak or am silent,
Tarry or hasten:
Everything, in its true nature,
Is stillness.
--Yoka Genkaku
Unfettered at last
Unfettered at last, a traveling monk,
I pass the old Zen barrier.
Mine is a traceless stream-and-cloud life,
Of these mountains, which shall be my home?
--Manan
A world of struggle
A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle
--Issa
White hair, after all, can never change.
Mountain fruit drop in the rain
and grass insects sing under my oil lamp.
White hair, after all, can never change
as yellow gold cannot be created.
If you want to know how to get rid
of age, its sickness, study nonbeing.
--Wang Wei
Ephemeral life though it be
This is the habit of our mind.
We pray for our life of tomorrow,
Ephemeral life though it be;
This is the habit of our mind
That passed away yesterday.
--Ikkyu
If you want to be free...
Lively and buoyant
If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it,
You turn away from it all the more.
--Rinzai
Drawn by its beauty, I lose myself.
Contemplating the clear moon
Reflecting a mind empty as the open sky -
Drawn by its beauty,
I lose myself
In the shadows it casts.
--Dōgen
The whole world is your own self.
Analyze the ten thousand things
Whether you are going or staying or sitting or lying down,
the whole world is your own self.
You must find out
whether the mountains, rivers, grass, and forests
exist in your own mind or exist outside it.
Analyze the ten thousand things,
dissect them minutely,
and when you take this to the limit
you will come to the limitless,
when you search into it you come to the end of search,
where thinking goes no further and distinctions vanish.
When you smash the citadel of doubt,
then the Buddha is simply yourself.
--Daikaku
Not a shadow of doubt do I cherish.
For thirty years I have been in search of the swordsman;
Many a time have I watched the leaves decay and the branches shoot!
Ever since I saw for once the peaches in bloom,
Not a shadow of doubt do I cherish.
--Reiun
Calm in the midst of activity
Happy in the midst of hardship
Calm in quietude is not real calm;
when you can be calm in the midst of activity,
this is the true state of nature.
Happiness in comfort is not real happiness;
when you can be happy in the midst of hardship,
then you see the true potential of the mind.
--Hong Zicheng
The most fleeting thought is timeless
Mind set free in the dharma-realm,
I sit at the moon-filled window
Watching the mountains with my ears,
Hearing the stream with open eyes.
Each molecule preaches perfect law,
Each moment chants true sutra:
The most fleeting thought is timeless,
A single hair's enough to stir the sea.
--Ryushu
One who conquers himself
One who conquers himself is greater than another who conquers a thousand times a thousand on the battlefield.
--Gotama Buddha, Dhammapada, Ch 8
What is this mind?
What is it that hears?
What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for Self-realization.
Continue to ask yourself:
What is it that hears?
--Bassui
Always the world is ablaze.
Can there be joy and laughter
When always the world is ablaze?
Enshrouded in darkness
Should you not seek a light?
--Gotama Buddha, Dhammapada, Ch 11
A skillful leader does not use force.
A skillful leader does not use force.
A skillful fighter does not feel anger.
A skillful master does not engage the opponent.
A skillful employer remains low.
This is called the power in not contending.
This is called the strength to employ others.
This is called the highest emulation of Nature.
--Laozi, Tao Te Ching, 68
Entrust oneself to change.
Natural, reckless, correct skill;
Yesterday's clarity is today's stupidity
The universe has dark and light, entrust oneself to change
One time, shade the eyes and gaze afar at the road of heaven.
--Ikkyū
I forget the days as they pass.
In the awakened eye
Mountains and rivers
Completely disappear.
The eye of delusion
Gazes upon
Deep fog and clouds.
Alone in my zazen
I forget the days
As they pass.
The wisteria has grown
Thick over the eaves
Of my hut.
--Musō
If you meet the Buddha‚ kill him.
--Rinzai
We ourselves must walk the path.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.
--Gotama Buddha
A heart like Never-despising Buddha
In the morning, bowing to all;
In the evening, bowing to all.
Respecting others is my only duty--
Hail to the Never-despising Bodhisattva.
In heaven and earth he stands alone.
A real monk
Needs
Only one thing--
a heart like
Never-despising Buddha.
--Ryōkan
"The earth is my witness."
As Siddhartha who had become the Buddha meditated beneath the bodhi tree, Mara, the Lord of Illusion, challenged him with all the fears and temptations of the world, that he might not pierce the veil and reach true understanding. But the arrows of Mara's demon armies turned to flowers before the Buddha, while his beautiful daughters were as old women, and the Buddha was unmoved by anything with which Mara confronted him.
Unwilling to give up, Mara demanded, "Who will testify that you are worthy to achieve supreme enlightenment?"
"The earth is my witness," said the Buddha. He reached to down to touch the ground with the tips of his fingers, and the very world itself rumbled and shook in reply.
Mara at last acknowledged defeat and withdrew, and thus did the knowledge of the Buddha first enter the world.
Come face to face with what you are
You find a flower half-buried in leaves,
And in your eye its very fate resides.
Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;
Soon enough, you'll sweep petals from the floor.
Terrible to love the lovely so,
To count your own years, to say "I'm old,"
To see a flower half-buried in leaves
And come face to face with what you are.
--Hanshan
The Master struck him a blow.
Someone is always getting hit in koans, especially the ones that feature Rinzai.