| | Koan for week # 1..............................................................................
Everyday Mind Is the True Way (Source: Wu-men Kwan, Case #19; Chinese Ch’an )
When he was a young man, Chao-chou asked Zen Master Nan-ch’uan, “What is the true way?”
Nan-ch’uan said, “Everyday mind is the true way.”
Chao-chou asked, “Should I, then, try to keep it or not?”
Nan-ch’uan replied, “If you try to keep it, you have already made a mistake.”
Chao-chou was confused and questioned, “But if I don’t try, how can I ever understand the true way?”
Nan-ch’uan then said, “The true way is not dependent on understanding or not understanding. Understanding is illusion; not understanding is blankness. If you completely attain the true way of not thinking, it is like space, clear and void. So, why do you make right and wrong way?”
Upon hearing this, Chao-chou was suddenly enlightened.
Checking Questions : (requiring a demonstration of insight as a response)
What is the true way?
“Everyday mind is the true way.” What does this mean?
“It is like space, clear and void.” What does this mean?
What did Chao-chou attain?
Zen Master Seung Sahn’s Commentary
Not eating for three days, you only desire food. Walking in the desert, you only desire water. The baby cries, and wants to see its mother. Everything is clear: many stars in the sky, many trees on the mountainside.
A helpful verse from Longchen Rabjam’s Precious Treasury of the Basic Space of Phenomena “Awakened mind is by nature primordially pure. The true nature of phenomena is such that there is nothing to discard or adopt, nothing that comes or goes, nothing to achieve by trying. Rather, the sun and moon of utter lucidity arise when one rests naturally in the spacious expanse that is the true nature of phenomena.”
And from The Tantra Without Letters : “the supreme method of resting, which is not brought about deliberately. Do not try to complicate or simplify it. This unique state of resting imperturbably is not one of maintaining stillness, yet there is no going beyond it."
And from The Precious Unborn Treasury : “Do not contrive, but relax naturally and gently! The uncontrived state is the precious unborn treasury. It is the path blazed by all victorious ones of the three times.” |