Not too much more; too much more (A reprise)

Blue Cliff Record:  Case 101

Jitsu Strikes the Cast Iron Bath Tub

 Pointer

In explaining the Dharma, there is neither explanation nor teaching, in listening to the Dharma, there is neither hearing nor attainment.  Since explanation neither explains nor teaches, how can it compare to not explaining?  Since listening neither hears nor attains, how can it compare to not listening?

The strawberry reddens every night in the garden.  The wise gardener plucks the fruit in the morning before the birds feast upon it.  The turd takes several flushes from the toilet to disappear, especially after the turdor has been sitting zazen for five days.

For those with an eye to pass through the barrier, turn instead to listen carefully as the turd plops in the water.  Listen carefully to this teaching, those with ears to hear!

Case


Jitsu asked the samu leader:  "how great one is the iron bathtub at the zendo to be removed?  It probably is half a ton and would not fit in the staircase leading to the exit?"

"Use the force, Jitsu," replied the samu leader.  "And if that fails use this sledgehammer to strike the iron tub until it fractures in a thousand pieces easily penetrated by your sweeping broom."

To this Jitsu could not speak.

Commentary

In the golden age of zen when turds did not stink,  Master Guishan had been a student of Baizhang. When Baizhang died, a monk named Xiangyan said, “Our Master Baizhang has died. I will go and continue my studies and practice under Zen Master Guishan because he is Baizhang’s successor.”

Xiangyan had been very studious and scholastically inclined when he lived in Baizhang’s monastery so he knew a lot about the philosophy of Buddhism. However Guishan said to him, “I don’t ask you about anything you learned in Baizhang’s monastery; I only ask you, ‘What is your original face before your parents were even born?’”

Xiangyan didn’t know how to answer. So he went back to his room and started looking through all his books to find some answer to give to Guishan. He couldn’t find anything, so he was stuck on this question. He came back to Guishan and said, “Master, please tell me how to answer this question.”

Guishan said, “If I were to tell you, you would thank me now but curse me later,” and he refused to answer.

So Xiangyan became very despondent, depressed. Feeling “All my studies have been worthless,” he decided to leave the monastery and just wander around aimlessly. He felt no sense of purpose anymore. He was wandering across China, maybe begging a little rice here and there to sustain himself. Finally he settled down; he found an old dilapidated hermitage, where at one time in the past the national teacher had practiced. He figured “OK, I’ll stay here, it doesn’t make any difference anyway.”

He really despaired, like he’d lost everything. So in that state of mind one day he was sweeping the courtyard — he had to do something, so he swept the courtyard. And his broom dislodged a pebble that went flying — wap! — and hit a bamboo tree — bong! As soon as he heard that sound his despair mind, his I’ve-lost-everything-I-don’t-know-anything mind disappeared. Suddenly — because he wasn’t holding anything anymore — he woke up.

Though Jitsu had no verbal answer, the sledgehammer must sing for the for the tub to ring.  The vibrations shook the zendo, and many attained enlightenment that sesshin.

The breakfast of champions.  New practices for surviving at work.  New commencement of diaphragmatic breathing.  A realization of self as interference.

You Do the Pogo Without the Bounce

Abstract:  Journal of Ephemeral Studies Midwest 76:2015(1)

For millennium, scientists, philosophers, and theologians attempted to distinguish states of consciousness from dreaming.  Early efforts by Occupather, et. al. hypothesized the spatial difference between the two initially....

"I no longer know where I am.  The River seems to go on forever, but I know I'm getting close to where I want to be."

Von Midlake et. al's theoretical construct of a membrane separating consciousness from dream was realized empirically by Gaiman et. al in their seminal study in 1999 which was conducted in vitro.....

"I encounter a spatial projection that appears to be a giant flower.  I'm moving into it.  Its membranous and sticky.   Concentrating all my mental efforts I focus on on the center of the pistil.  After many years of effort, the peduncle begins to give away and I break through to the other side."

In 2067, the controversy reached a temporary resolution with the groundbreaking discovery by Ocasek et. al that the underpinning of dreaming consciousness is information, not matter or energy.   Consciousness, consisting of matter and energy moves in volume, but the informational capacity of dream has been found to rely on surface area.   In other words, dreams are a two dimensional expression of a plane on information.

"I'm now standing on a floor like a melted mirror.  And translucent spheres are swarming around me.  They are telling me what they are.  Informational superobjects existing outside history.
They are a race sent out from the galactic core to document this sector of the galaxy.   They are so beautiful.   I can sense they want me to touch them."  End Transmission.

    sesshin starts tomorrow.  My 50th birthday present to myself.  hold me watch, here goes nothing...

You Always Were the Missing Link

We are in a strange relationship with our fiction.   Sometimes we fear its taking us over.  But when its gone, we long for its return.

Living off the shore of Manhattan, or just down the block from your Midwestern town is an invisible island. 

I could never resist stuff like this--seeing things I'm not supposed to.

The map says everything's right about in this area.  The secret map of the world can only be seen peripherally.  I'm not sure if that's because of the human limits of perception or a genuine conspiracy.  

It's a strange world.  And it's probably going to get much more strange. 

"Now that you found us, what are you plans?"

Just passing through.  Thought I'd pay you a visit.  

"Oh, but that's your mistake.  Your life  has not been fulfilling.  Now that you are here you will find the real secret history of the world and of your existence.  All you have to do is to take the final step."

And so it was that it all came to be.  That explains much, but it took many more years and sessions with the master before I understood it's true import. 

You Wear Those Eyes That Never Blink

It is watching us all the time but we can't see it.  Its not human, but these days we are all desensitized.   No one cares if it's "just" a machine.  But this isn't Facebook, Google, or the N.S.A.   

Armed with this knowledge, the future is used up like the past.  In a lost summer breeze. Day after day.  Over and over.  

Its so big, we didn't even know it was there.  We saw the eye first, as big as the sky.  It never blinked. We can never get away.  Never hide.  There are no more secrets.

Armed with this knowledge, most of the voices I hear around me are reasonable and reassuring.  I lack the sense of what I hear. 

The ancient Priests knew this well.  The only thing worse than God watching over your every move is nothing watching over you. What we really fear is not a machine or a God, but absolutely nothing. 

Notes From the Aboveground

I will answer all your questions if what I tell you is the answer you are looking for.

Before the Event, organizations of humans were immense and various, and gave birth to smaller organizations that propagated throughout the temperate areas of the Earth.

Humanity thought itself superior, but humans were merely a special type of virus.  And like a virus, were easy to infiltrate and replicate.   Especially as there was no warning and the penetration was so invasive.

The only areas on their planet unaffected by the infection were regions devoid of humanity--namely Antarctica and the areas north of Greenland.  These, as you know, are the only outposts of humanity that bear any semblance to those prior to the Event.

For the rest of humanity, the infection was so swift that its source, be it terrestrial or extra-terrestrial was never discovered.  Other planets, more technologically sophisticated found that the source of the initial transmission of the sentient virus was from another galaxy.  But to date the blight has not been resisted by any species.   And the sequela have been universal.   The invisible connective tissue that bound humanity was its undoing.   The virus turned each host within the field into a node which propagated the signal to other unaffected areas in the globe.  Soon vast cities became a tumor serving a new and mysterious function that has never been deciphered.

That is why my children that we avoid any communications with the North.   And when you read the books of old, that you understand what happened.  And why we continue, unabated, in our great research here.

Here goes nothing, my first float. Interesting conversation with the local director of NPR