One of the reasons I believe in jazz is that the oneness of man can come through the rhythm of your heart. It’s the same any place in the world, that heartbeat. It’s the first thing you hear when you’re born — or before you’re born — and it’s the last thing you hear. — Dave Brubeck



Showing posts with label Koans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Koans. Show all posts

Sunday, August 15, 2021

Dokusan goes Kung-an

Talking publicly about sex


Zen students don’t talk about our private meetings with our teachers. “Dokusan” means "going alone to a respected one." These conversations have an aura. They take place in the context of meditation. We respect their privacy because they can be very intimate, shaking our world to its very foundations. 


I’m going to break that rule, and talk about just such an intimate conversation I had with Issan Dorsey Roshi. I’m going public and talk openly about a private conversation about sex. In Zen these kinds of conversations are called koans, a term which comes from the Chinese characters, 公案, Kung-an, which literally means “public notice.” 


Issan has been dead for almost 30 years. In the traditional koan collections, the teachers have been dead a lot longer, and, as most of these dialogues were between celibate members of the sangha, most talk about sex is, how shall I say it, in a different context. You’ll also have to take my word that the conversation was one that shook me to the core, and helped me, as a gay man, focus my meditation. Issan can’t verify his side of the conversation, but if I’ve hit the mark, and done my job as Issan’s student, you might be able to use his teaching to untie some personal knots about meditation.


I grew up in a traditional Irish Catholic family, or at least I had a very traditional Irish mother. Her word was law. She taught us to avoid talk about sex in polite conversation which meant that it was rarely, if ever, spoken about. Drunken conversations were of course another matter. There politeness was optional. As drunken conversations, they carried less weight, but they were at least a time when you could talk about sex. Good Jamison could be counted on as the Irish un-inhibitor.


Fitting quite nicely with my preconceived notions, in Zen settings most talk about sex focuses on the prohibitory precepts, or that has been my experience. 


At one of my first sesshins, a long intense meditation period, hours upon hours with a few breaks to eat and get the blood flowing back into the legs, my mind began to play a nasty trick on me, or so I thought. I imagined myself in love with a very cute guy who was sitting about three seats to my left. Let’s call him “R.” R has been a Zen priest for many years. He also knew and practiced with Issan so I’m sure he would love being part of this koan, but I don’t know how useful it would be for the public to know the real name of R who was the object of my sexual fantasy.


My mind couldn’t do anything else but fantasize! When I got up after a period, I glanced in his direction to know that he was still there. Even if I managed to focus on my breath for a few seconds while I was sitting, It required enormous effort.


My obsession had totally hijacked my mind.  


I went to see Issan after the first period. His bedroom doubled as his interview room, a few candles, a bell, two cushions set close to one another. After I bowed, I blurted out the whole story.


He looked at me, entirely present, and then we both began to laugh, slowly at first, but then louder and louder.


Finally he took a breath and said, “Oh, I fell in love with someone every practice period at Tassajara. They were usually straight so you can imagine how that went.”


Then he told me a story. 


“When I was tenzo at Tassajara during one practice period, I fell head over heels in love with a very handsome young man. I suppose you could say I was obsessed. It was hard enough to escape all those fantasies in meditation, but it even got to the point where it was dangerous--when I was chopping, I had to consciously pull my mind back to the vegetable, the knife, and the board to avoid mindlessly chopping off a finger. 


"When you’re actually in deep concentration the strangest things can happen. It got to the point that it was even difficult to concentrate when I was cooking--and that was my responsibility--so I went into the Roshi and talked about it!


“And then I discovered that I could just stop it. I mean it really stopped. I think I might have just been more able to return to my breath. Probably nothing more.”


Then he asked, “Can you stop loving R? Would that even be a good thing? I just don’t want you to chop off your finger.”


Issan & James 






Friday, July 12, 2019

Koan Bibliography

Koan Collections


The Blue Cliff Record


The Blue Cliff Record (Chinese: (碧巖錄) Bìyán Lù; Japanese: Hekiganroku (碧巌録?); Korean: Byeokamrok, 벽암록(碧巖錄);Vietnamese: Bích nham lục (碧巖錄)) is a collection of Chán Buddhist koans originally compiled in China during the Song dynasty in 1125 (宋宣和七年) and then expanded into its present form by the Chán master Yuanwu Keqin (圜悟克勤 1063 – 1135).


The book includes Yuanwu's annotations and commentary on Xuedou Zhongxian's (雪竇重顯 980 – 1052) collection 100 Verses on Old Cases (頌古百則) — a compilation of 100 koans. Xuedou selected 82 of these from the Jingde Chuandeng Lu (景德傳燈錄) (Jingde era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp), with the remainder selected from the Yunmen Guanglu (雲門廣録), Extensive Record of Yunmen Wenyan (864 – 949).


Another key legend regards Dogen Zenji (道元禅師; 1200 – 1253), who brought the Soto Zen sect to Japan. After an extended visit to China for the purpose of studying Zen, on the night before his planned return to Japan, Dogen saw the Bìyán Lù for the first time, and stayed up all night making a handwritten copy of the book. Given the size of the book, this story is almost certainly apocryphal.

The most widely used translation is The Blue Cliff Record, J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary, trans.



The Gateless Gate


The Gateless Gate (無門關, Mandarin. Wúménguān, Japanese. 無門関, Mumonkan) is a collection of 48 Chan (Zen) koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master Wumen Hui-k'ai (無門慧開)(1183–1260) (Japanese: Mumon Ekai). Wumen's preface indicates that the volume was published in 1228. Each koan is accompanied by a commentary and verse by Wumen. A classic edition includes a 49th case composed by Anwan (pen name for Cheng Ch'ing-Chih) in 1246. Wu-liang Tsung-shou also supplemented the volume with a verse of four stanzas composed in 1230 about the three checkpoints of Zen master Huanglong. These three checkpoints of Huanglong should not be confused with Doushuai's Three Checkpoints found in Case 47.


Along with the Blue Cliff Record and the oral tradition of Hakuin Ekaku, The Gateless Gate is a central work much used in Rinzai School practice. Five of the koans in the work concern the sayings and doings of Zhaozhou; four concern Ummon.


There are 3 widely used English translations:

Yamada, Koun, The Gateless Gate, Center Publications, Wisdom Publications. 2004

Aitken, Robert, The Gateless Barrier, The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumokan), North Point Press, San Francisco. 1991

Gateless Barrier: Zen Comments on the Mumonkan by Zenkei Shibayama is somewhat hard to find in print. 


Other Koan Collections

Book of Serenity: One Hundred Zen Dialogues Shoyo Roku, Hung-chih Cheng-chüeh, Cleary, Thomas, trans., Shambhala, 1998

Entangling Vines, Shumon kattoshu, is one of the few major koan texts to have been compiled in Japan rather than China. Thomas Yuho Kirchner (Translator), Nelson Foster (Foreword), Ueda Shizuteru (Introduction).


Shōbōgenzō (正法眼蔵, lit. "Treasury of the True Dharma Eye")

Master Dogen’s Shinji Shobogenzo: 301 Koan Stories, Nishijima, Gudo, Michael Luetchford & Jeremy Pearson (eds), Windbell Publications, Woking. 2003

The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen's Three Hundred Koans, John Daido Loori,  Kazuaki Tanahashi (Translator)



Other Books

Cleary, Thomas, Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record: Zen Comments by Hakuin and Tenkei, Shambhala, Boston & London. 2000

Cleary, Rational Zen; The Mind of Dogen Zenji, Shambhala, Boston & London. 1993

Cleary, No Barrier: Unlocking the Zen Koan, Aquarian/Thorsons, London. 1993

James Ishmael Ford  (Ed), Melissa Myozen Blacker (Ed), John Tarrant (Foreword) The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen's Most Important Koan. 2011

Heine, Steven, Dogen and the Koan Tradition: A Tale of Two Shobogenzo Texts, SUNY, Albany. 1994

Hori, Victor Sogen, Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for Koan Practice, University of  Hawai'i Press,  Honolulu, 2003

MacInnes, Elaine  Ruben L. F. Habito (Foreword)The Flowing Bridge: Guidance on Beginning Zen Koans 

Miura, Isshu & Sasaki, Ruth Fuller, The Zen Koan: Its History and Use in Rinzai Zen, Harcourt Brace & Co., San Diego. 1965

Nishijima, Gudo & Cross, Chodo, Master Dogen’s Shobogenzo, Book 1, Windbell Publications, Woking. 1994

O'Halloran, Maura, Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind: The Life and Letters of an Irish Zen Saint 

Japanese Buddhism and the Meiji Restoration, The American Academy of Religion, 1997

Sasaki, Ruth Fuller, A Man of Zen: The Recorded Sayings of Layman P'ang






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