GarrotTheThief
The Green Jolly Robin H.
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2014
- Messages
- 1,648
- MBTI Type
- ENTJ
This is a thread for my Koans. Feel free to respond in however fashion you wish as long as you obey the rules of the forum. Always listen to the music if you can to fully appreciate the power of my Koans and to let them fully empower you.
First, many will question why someone can be a zen master without any worldly accomplishment - such as making 1,000,000 dollars or discovering a cure for a disease, or graduating from Harvard, or winning back to back NBA championships.
This is precisely why they are not zen masters. Such a question is asked by a novice and never answered by a master. To do so would corrupt the student's teachings.
The greatest Zen master who ever lived is unknown. We know this for the same reason we know that an object made a splash in water when we never saw the object but turned to look and saw the splash. Of course the splash was made by something, even if that thing was only an invisible force, what sort of fool would think other wise.
Second, many will say or think how someone can call themselves a zen master. Isn't that a title given and not taken?
This is a good question, but again, asking such a question as before demonstrates clumsiness. When a master wields his sword of zen, he does not pick it up and say to himself that the kitana must be given to him in order for him to wield it for he has just seen the kitana and wielded it, there were no mediators, no one to ask for permission.
When a man walks into a forest and finds a sword it is unatural to the observer or receiver of the story because he has assumed that he is outside of nature. The sword, like a tree, or a grape, is defined by its relationship to the man. Without a man a steel beam is not a sword. Only when the man exists does the meaning of the sword exist. Otherwise it is just there, for whatever it is, by the next thing that relates to it.
So now my KOAN:
A young warrioress approached her teacher: "I am afraid to fear. I am afraid to be weak for I fear things that a child fears. I fear losing my loved ones. I fear missing the face of my mother and father. I fear my siblings will go away and I will never see them. How can I be strong as an adult ninja master and have no fear? It is as if the more I try to be as hard as the old dog warriors the more I become weak like a child."
The zen master replied: I have a Dojo in the mountains not far from here. Do you know, in one room I hang all the masks I wore when the old armies invaded. These masks are the faces of tortured souls and demons. This is my fear room. I can go in it as I please but the door is always open to go into the other room. In the other room, I have nothing but white walls and a wooden floor. I clean this floor every day and it is the room I prefer to stay in, but sometimes I go in the other room. It is either for a whisper or for a lake, but I always go between the two, and there are many more rooms too.
But the Dojo is not a single room. It is many rooms. Never can I say that the Dojo is a fear room. To do so would be childish. Having a fear room, however, is the mark of a Dojo. Without a fear room, there can be no Dojo, just a half built house with a gaping hole and torrents to torture the inhabitants."
With that the young princess warrior, Horiyoko, began to tear and cry. She knelt in respect to the old man and went back to training with understanding and truth and with great joy and sorrow all at once.
First, many will question why someone can be a zen master without any worldly accomplishment - such as making 1,000,000 dollars or discovering a cure for a disease, or graduating from Harvard, or winning back to back NBA championships.
This is precisely why they are not zen masters. Such a question is asked by a novice and never answered by a master. To do so would corrupt the student's teachings.
The greatest Zen master who ever lived is unknown. We know this for the same reason we know that an object made a splash in water when we never saw the object but turned to look and saw the splash. Of course the splash was made by something, even if that thing was only an invisible force, what sort of fool would think other wise.
Second, many will say or think how someone can call themselves a zen master. Isn't that a title given and not taken?
This is a good question, but again, asking such a question as before demonstrates clumsiness. When a master wields his sword of zen, he does not pick it up and say to himself that the kitana must be given to him in order for him to wield it for he has just seen the kitana and wielded it, there were no mediators, no one to ask for permission.
When a man walks into a forest and finds a sword it is unatural to the observer or receiver of the story because he has assumed that he is outside of nature. The sword, like a tree, or a grape, is defined by its relationship to the man. Without a man a steel beam is not a sword. Only when the man exists does the meaning of the sword exist. Otherwise it is just there, for whatever it is, by the next thing that relates to it.
So now my KOAN:
A young warrioress approached her teacher: "I am afraid to fear. I am afraid to be weak for I fear things that a child fears. I fear losing my loved ones. I fear missing the face of my mother and father. I fear my siblings will go away and I will never see them. How can I be strong as an adult ninja master and have no fear? It is as if the more I try to be as hard as the old dog warriors the more I become weak like a child."
The zen master replied: I have a Dojo in the mountains not far from here. Do you know, in one room I hang all the masks I wore when the old armies invaded. These masks are the faces of tortured souls and demons. This is my fear room. I can go in it as I please but the door is always open to go into the other room. In the other room, I have nothing but white walls and a wooden floor. I clean this floor every day and it is the room I prefer to stay in, but sometimes I go in the other room. It is either for a whisper or for a lake, but I always go between the two, and there are many more rooms too.
But the Dojo is not a single room. It is many rooms. Never can I say that the Dojo is a fear room. To do so would be childish. Having a fear room, however, is the mark of a Dojo. Without a fear room, there can be no Dojo, just a half built house with a gaping hole and torrents to torture the inhabitants."
With that the young princess warrior, Horiyoko, began to tear and cry. She knelt in respect to the old man and went back to training with understanding and truth and with great joy and sorrow all at once.
