Ten Verses on Koans IX

Responses to koans in Gateless Gate -- a.k.a. Wumenguan (Chinese), Mumonkan (Japanese),
Blue Cliff Record -- a.k.a. Biyan Lu (Chinese), Hekiganroku (Japanese), and
Book of Serenity -- a.k.a. Congrong Lu (Chinese), Shoyoroku (Japanese).

Book of Serenity 68
No dust! Clear Buddha!
But the mind soon makes dustless clarity into "dustless clarity."
With Jiashan's sword, cut off those marks --
Or, with Shishuang's understanding, unhook them.
Fly, you fish. Swim, you birds.

2017 Sep

Gateless Gate 25, Book of Serenity 90
There I was in Professor Maitreya's class,
Was it the second or the third seat?
Someone in a monk's cowl called on me
Did he bang the gavel first, or not?
Anyway, I took that gavel and banged it.
I had some point to make that seemed important.
Or I'd already made it.
I wanted the class to get it.
Something about propositions and negations and beyond.
Then I woke up and the dream
Began.

2017 Sep

Blue Cliff Record 34
There are peaks and there are valleys
But it is all the peak.
Even so, it is, at the same time,
A big mistake.

2017 Sep

Blue Cliff Record 68
I am the pine trees
For all that
If I bump into one
I say excuse me.

2017 Sep

Book of Serenity 26
The white, whole and beautiful, pure and radiant.
It goes beyond
the red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
What goes beyond the white?
The red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
What's all this beyonding?

2017 Oct

Book of Serenity 32
One side of the mystery.
How many sides are there? (None. One. Two. More than the square of the number of all the grains of sand in the world.)
From the mountain peak of faith to the village street of person,
Wherever you are, you're needed at the other.

2017 Oct

Book of Serenity 62
"Second class enlightenment"?
It is the way of my house to speak thus,
Goosing one another to notice conceptualizing
And serve the greens fresh
As befits a house of the homeless.

2017 Oct

Book of Serenity 77
First, the myriad things. Then, the practice.
Third, the empty oneness. Then, guarding the dharma.
Yangshan and company put on a flashy show,
But there's really nothing to it.

2017 Nov

Blue Cliff Record 43
Asking how, answering why.
Asking where, answering when.
No what, no who: suffering cannot arise.
From the beginning, we are dead ones walking.

2017 Nov

Book of Serenity 45
The way the sun's warmth is pleasant before I think "pleasant" --
The way it's just there, abiding.
The way the thought "pleasant" arises before I notice it has --
The way it too is just there.
I can't not dwell in the luminous.

2017 Nov

Ten Verses on Koans VIII

Ten Verses on Koans X

KOAN INDEX