Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Buddhist
The Buddha Takes His Seat: A Brief Reflection on a Zen Koan

The Buddha Takes His Seat: A Brief Reflection on a Zen Koan

Last updated on: August 27, 2017 at 7:54 am by James Ford

The Buddha Takes His Seat: A Brief Reflection on a Zen Koan 2017-08-27T07:54:24-07:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Case

One day the Buddha ascended to the platform. Manjushri struck the board and announced “Contemplate clearly the dharma of the Dharma King. The dharma of the Dharma King is just this.”

Blue Cliff Record Case 92 & Book of Serenity Case 1

Something in the neighborhood of fifty years ago I attend a talk by a Buddhist monk. He was an American, a convert disciple of a Chinese meditation master. So, in those days something of a rare bird.

He began his remarks by telling a story. He described a famous master being invited to give a dharma talk. The venerable showed up ascended the rostrum. Looked out at everyone. Stood silently for a few very long minutes. And, then turned, stepped back down, and walked away.

The monk and most of the audience found this all very humorous. Sort of a Zen joke. Me, I noticed that after telling this story about silence or at least not speaking, the monk launched into a talk that lasted for nearly an hour.

And, well, here I am. After all those years I have come to be charged with sharing the dharma. Now, on occasion its my task to climb up on that platform and attempt to point to the heart of our way. In these years and now, today, I’ve never forgotten that anecdote. Nor have I forgotten that little discrepancy between the person telling the story of silence and the cascade of words that followed.

And with that here’s another version of the story and a few more words following.

First, there’s the case collected twice in the great Twelfth century anthologies. It’s pretty simple. The World Honored One himself steps up to the platform. Buddha means awake and has come to be a title. Sometimes when we say Buddha we mean Gautama Siddhartha, the person who birthed, lived, and died within the bounds of history. And sometimes we mean awakening itself. Buddha can be the collapse of all distinctions. Time and space. The great boundless. And Buddha is something specific. That Buddha finite and infinite ascends the platform.

Manjushri, the incarnation of wisdom itself, strikes the board, strikes the bell, and announces. We are called to pay attention. Notice. Notice. Listen. Listen.

The holy one wastes no time. He quickly points to the nub of it all. The dharma, the teaching, the pointing of the king of all teaching, of all pointing, is fully present. Right here. Right now.

And, in case we still don’t get it, a coda. Manjushri, wisdom points. Just this.

Just this.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Lotus Sutra of late. The Lotus is one of the principal texts of the Mahayana, the Great Way, that school or family of schools of Buddhism that spreads from Tibet to Korea and Japan. The Mahayana flourished in China and birthed, among other things, Zen.

The Lotus announced that beyond all the schools there is a single way. It is eternal. And it is present in the moment. It informs us we all are inherently Buddha. But, the structure of the text is one of the more astonishing of all Buddhist sutras. The structure is largely an announcement of the Lotus Sutra. We are told to attend, to notice, to open our hearts and our minds. We are give great promises of vast reward in attending to this. In fact we are encourage to recite, to copy, to propagate the sutra. And, we are warned of dire consequences in ignoring it. And all along the way of announcement this text gives us anecdotes explaining such things as skillful means, and our universal connection. But, it never quite gets to something that might be called the sutra itself.

Kind of like this koan.

Since that time I heard that talk all those years ago I’ve heard the story of a teacher going to the platform, standing or sitting silently, and then leaving, repeated any number of times. Sometimes the silent moment is just a glance. Other times we have the teacher sitting silently for an hour. In all cases no word is spoken.

Instead the Buddha’s body is itself the message. Presence is itself the teaching.

And like with the sutra all around that presence, that just this, those of us called to propagate, to present, to announce, say: attend.

But even that sermon of presence has to be carefully engaged. There are those who believe this moment, the one in which we are currently living is “it” to the exclusion of the past and the future. In fact we do have to be careful about that. People who have brain injuries that cause them to live in that kind of present moment where there is literally no past and no future, are profoundly impaired. They cannot survive on their own. And if you’ve met someone with that condition or have seen psychological training films that display someone in that condition, its hard not to feel sad. Sad for them. Sad for their care givers.

This is not the presence we’re speaking of. That wound is not the invitation.

So, here we have a presentation like in Platform Sutra of the Sixth Ancestor, which is another rich source for koans, captured in case 23 of the Gateless Gate when our teacher Huineng asks the former general and now elder monk Ming, “Without thinking of good or evil, what is your original face?,” repeated in other versions and contexts as “Before your parents were born, what is your original face?” Now the invitation becomes a question.

In our times, the Soto Zen priest Charlie Pokorny sings to us of the presentation, of the question, of the response.

Cracking open the treasure storehouse
Each jewel shines from within, in between
And all the way through
A thousand faces at Green Dragon Temple.
Clearly observe thus:
Dharma rains down, great earth shivers –
A pair of eyes looks up:
Transgressed just for all of us.

For you and me the World Honored One broke the silence. With his body at once decaying and never born and never to die he brings everything together.

And shows us our healing.

Previous Post

August 25, 2017

Recalling the Great Moon Hoax. No, Not the Eclipse. You Saw That One, Remember?

Next Post

August 27, 2017 The Zen Koan of the Buddha's Teaching and Bodhidharma's Intention

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which prophet was exiled to Babylon and saw a vision of four living creatures?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Hosea Joel Jeremiah Ezekiel