Zen is Called A Barrier and the Teaching a Snare: More on Genjokoan and the Monk Bowing

Last updated on: September 21, 2009 at 7:20 pm by Dosho Port

Zen is Called A Barrier and the Teaching a Snare: More on Genjokoan and the Monk Bowing 2009-09-21T19:20:00-06:00 Dosho Port

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The Zen snare is also a fulcrum. Here’s the main one (snare and fulcrum) in the Genjokoan:

Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, “Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why then do you fan yourself?”

“Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent,” Mayu replied,” you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere.”

“What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?” asked the monk again.

Mayu just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.

Every student of Soto Zen knows about this koan but how many see what the monk saw that he expressed by bowing?

“Quite a few, quite a few,” Katagiri Roshi would say with his limited English proficiency – when what he meant was “Quite few.”

Now you might find yourself wanting to dismiss the question. “Bowing is just bowing.” This is one-sided, emphasizing not thinking, and so doesn’t have the power to cause a lineage to bloom (or to ripen the great earth’s goldenness). Watch out for the snare using Zen talk to not deal with this issue (or any other)!

You might find yourself thinking, “The monk saw his his own road ahead of him in example.”

Or “The monk saw that you have to practice to make the wind of dharma blow.”

Or “He saw the old master’s wholehearted hair on fire in his steady fanning, whatever the circumstances.”

Or “The fan represents the 10,000 things advancing and confirming the self just as the fan causes the wind to move toward the self, comforting the skin bag.”

Good ideas. Good snares. Important contextual points too – but not the truth happening (aka, koan) point. Watch out for the snare!

What did the monk see that he expressed by bowing?

What Dogen saw in the monks bow, and what the Genjokoan unpacks in rolling hopping along vividness, had such an enormous power that it caused our lineage to bloom for some hundreds of years with all the freedom that goes with it.

If we today dismiss the needle point of this question or are satisfied with thin explanations, we won’t have the strength of love to bring it forth in our daily life.

And speaking of barriers, snares, and shit (which I have been lately), it is really important to have a keen and sensitive bullshit detector to do this work – to your own bullshit. So crank up the dial and keep digging.

Don’t accept a dry, conceptual understanding – we’re in the middle of the great ocean you can’t not get wet. Look! Look!

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