Ten Verses on Koans VII

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).

Blue Cliff Record 57
"Alone, alone, all, all alone/ Alone on a wide, wide sea!"
The picking and choosing that picks nor chooses --
The alone that knows no aloneness --
The Great Way becomes you.

2017 Mar

Blue Cliff Record 58
The old man was 80 before he consented to teach.
By then, decrepit, and so unattached to whether or not he was attached,
He had nothing to left to teach -- nothing more than
a stone, a brook, or a breeze teaches.

2017 Mar

Blue Cliff Record 59
Take it to the end: Give every bit of yourself!
"I only meant this much." He's made his choice and chosen small.
The Great Way, helping people:
Only take it all the way to the end.

2017 Apr

Blue Cliff Record 80
There's a babe inside the adult,
Overlaid with learning, skills, delusions.
There's no going back, and what is going forward?
This, then this, then this . . . Watch and see!
"Not by your will is the house carried through the night."

2017 Apr

Blue Cliff Record 96
Mud clay, gold metal, wood
Every strength depends upon weakness
Your destruction is incorporated into your being, as usual.
"The true Buddha is sitting in the recesses of the house."

2017 Apr

Book of Serenity 57
The nothing returns again to something.
If the nothing returns as something to obtain, have, grasp,
Scrape off that sticky something nothing.
Wash it away.
Otherwise, the nothing returns to mere being, the self-world river.
Float downstream;
Smile softly over the fall.

2017 Apr

Blue Cliff Record 55
Alive or dead? Form or emptiness?
Meaning or no meaning? The body,
beautiful and poignant, presents all that has passed.
For a while it moved; then it stopped.

2017 May

Blue Cliff Record 89, Book of Serenity 54
Compassion, in the darkness, seeing nothing,
acts with unthinking naturalness.
Being awakened is like being asleep --
Nondiscriminating, responding spontaneously.
A patch of violets beside the path --
What could be more awake?
What more could Compassion do?

2017 May

Book of Serenity 21
Working hard is taking it easy.
Taking it easy is working hard.
The moon, for instance: nothing works harder --
Nothing's more at ease.
The river, for instance.
The flower beside the path.

2017 May

Book of Serenity 83
The stars at night: sick or healthy?
The room where Daowu tends a patient: a sick or healthy room?
Perceiving the sickness of health, the health of sickness,
Is a single step down an infinite road --
A sick or healthy step?

2017 May

Ten Verses on Koans VI

Ten Verses on Koans VIII

KOAN INDEX