Daoist Koan

[konchog uma]

A person named Lee had heard that there was a master whose manners and appearance were of the highest degree of elegance, and who possessed a high degree of knowledge. He went to visit the master and found him sitting under a pine tree with a classic text in his hand. The master's concentration on the classics was so great, he failed to notice Lee's arrival.

 

Lee had a quick temper, and was also very impatient. He immediately became angry with the master, supposing him so arrogant as to find Lee completely unimportant. He said to the master angrily, "To meet someone in person is not as good as to hear of their reputation!" and turned to leave.

 

The master laid down his book and looked up at Lee with a smile. "Sir, why do you place more emphasis on what you hear than on what you see?"

 

Lee was unconcerned with the master's sarcasm, and decided to test him. He asked, "Master, can you tell me what Tao is?"

 

The master pointed up with his index finger, and then pointed down. He asked "Do you understand?"

 

Lee responded "I don't know"

 

"The cloud is in the blue sky and the water is in the gourd."

 

Lee suddenly lost his disrespectful attitude and became enlightened.

[Informer]

A person named Lee had heard that there was a master whose manners and appearance were of the highest degree

 

Interesting. 1st one of these I've heard. Are there more of them? Possibly and riddles?

[konchog uma]

no i don't have any more of those. That one came from The Tao of Meditation by Jou, Tsung Hwa. There were some buddhist koans and zen/chan koans but that was the only daoist one.

 

lets make up some daoist riddles.

 

you first i'm tired.

[Informer]

How does one look at the blind spot within ones eye?

[konchog uma]

nice

 

why did the buddha cross the road?

 

cause he was about to meet someone who would kill him.

 

ouch.

 

im not good at making up riddles

[Taomeow]

no i don't have any more of those. That one came from The Tao of Meditation by Jou, Tsung Hwa. There were some buddhist koans and zen/chan koans but that was the only daoist one.

 

Doesn't sound taoist to me, this koan of his. He (or someone else before him) must have reinterpreted a zen koan or something, since the routine whereby the master says something and the student becomes "enlightened" is quite un-taoist. Taoists are not in the habit of being "enlightened" at all, much less by words.

 

Here's a taoist koan with a taoist moral to compare:

 

 

~ The Useless Tree ~

Hui Tzu said to Chuang, "I have a big tree, the kind they call a "stinktree." The trunk is so distorted, so full of knots, no one can get a straight plank out of it. The branches are so crooked you cannot cut them up in any way that makes sense. There it stands beside the road. No carpenter will even look at it. Such is your teaching - big and useless."

 

Chuang Tzu replied, "Have you ever watched the wildcat crouching, watching his prey. The prey leaps this way, and that way, high and low, and at last lands in the trap. And have you seen the Yak? Great as a thundercloud, he stands in his might. Big? Sure, but he can't catch mice!"

 

"So for your big tree, no use? Then plant it in the wasteland, in emptiness. Walk idly around it, rest under its shadow. No axe or bill prepares its end. No one will ever cut it down."

 

"Useless? You should worry!"

 

 

 

 

[Harmonious Emptiness]

I guess Lao Tzu speaks in riddles a bit, Chuang Tzu obviously a lot. Maybe some alchemical literature could be considered riddles in some way, until you know what the terms mean. There is some Taoist poetry and songs too, though I don't know they would be so much like the Koans or Zen poems. Some of the Tai Chi classics, also I Ching stories are like riddles.

 

Hmmm. Is this where the word ridiculous comes from!!? I guess the Koans do ridicule the person in a way. They sort of humble the person who thinks they have this big knowledge, cause them to bring it down a notch and know without knowing. So, humble, humiliate, riddle, ridicule.. What do you think you know? Oh yeah?!! Now what do you know?! Hmpfh

[Taomeow]

I guess Lao Tzu speaks in riddles a bit, Chuang Tzu obviously a lot. Maybe some alchemical literature could be considered riddles in some way, until you know what the terms mean. There is some Taoist poetry and songs too, though I don't know they would be so much like the Koans or Zen poems. Some of the Tai Chi classics, also I Ching stories are like riddles.

 

Hmmm. Is this where the word ridiculous comes from!!? I guess the Koans do ridicule the person in a way. They sort of humble the person who thinks they have this big knowledge, cause them to bring it down a notch and know without knowing. So, humble, humiliate, riddle, ridicule.. What do you think you know? Oh yeah?!! Now what do you know?! Hmpfh

 

 

Taoists are masters of ridicule. About alphabet writing (like English, Spanish, Russian et al), they say that it is as beautiful as the traces left on a dusty tabletop by scurrying cockroaches. About Buddhists, they say they are as agile and determined in their climbing up toward higher realms as bedbugs climbing up a trousers leg. About Christians, they say that exhibiting and worshiping images of a god who is dead, naked, and pinned to a piece of wood is exceedingly kinky.

 

When I was in China, we were seeing a taoist TCM practitioner, and at one point I came in with a cold. The doctor asked me with exaggerated concern, "where do you have the cold?" "I got my feet wet in the pouring rain, and then started sneezing." "Oh... you got a dog disease," he said gravely, while his eyes twinkled with mischief. "What?.." "You know, humans get a cold in the head... dogs get cold in the nose."

[Harmonious Emptiness]

 

Taoists are masters of ridicule.

 

no disagreement there.. The Chuang Tzu is almost a satire, with a side hook of life altering wisdom

[pendrikkson]

I feel like every time I read Taoist (philosophical) and Zen writings, it becomes more apparent that they're both nearly the same thing. There are some minor differences, ie. when you get to the actual practice of Zen as opposed to just the Zen perspective. There were Zen patriarchs who wrote about, "The Way." I feel that, from what I've read, Taoism and Zen go hand in hand.

[Taomeow]

I feel like every time I read Taoist (philosophical) and Zen writings, it becomes more apparent that they're both nearly the same thing. There are some minor differences, ie. when you get to the actual practice of Zen as opposed to just the Zen perspective. There were Zen patriarchs who wrote about, "The Way." I feel that, from what I've read, Taoism and Zen go hand in hand.

 

IMO, it's the similarity between "pearls" and "pearl barley" -- i.e. limited to some spiritual homophones.

 

I happen to believe that giving other cultures the benefit of fine discernment is the first step away from the lumping-it-all-together stance of our colonial legacy. For themselves Westerners retain the right to see as meaningful, if not "major" or at least "significant," the differences between Catholicism, Protestantism, Presbyterianism, Greek Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, etc. etc.., and generally don't feel that one can be a "the same as the other" substitute for any purposes -- having waged many, many wars to prove it. But doctrines of the rest of the world seem to be viewed as freely interchangeable -- it boils down to "not like us = all the same."

 

Well, yeah, on some level everything is the same... We all have about the same number of heads, as a species. One could argue that any which way we use these heads is the same. E.g., none of us have retractable noses or ears...

[Birch]

Ah, so much then for my willingness to see many things as simultaneously true. Error.

I understood a koan as a teaching technique. There one is, rambling to oneself internally all day and taking it all to be the way things are and then one is given a koan to ramble on internally all day and failing to understand it is also how things are, internally at least. Like it wasn't obvious I was rambling? I don't think this would be necessary if a person is not rambling all day in self-perpetuating ideas about the way things are. But that's what seems to happen. How it happens is another thing. As far as I can tell so far Taoism is the antidote - the way of understanding how we get to this point and where it goes from there as well as the way back from there. A koan implies that following it you will find your own way. I think.

[Owledge]

Isn't a koan supposed to be a story that makes one think and this process guiding the way? The stories presented here as koans appear to have a relatively obvious morale in them, a message that can be summed up.

The koans I've heard usually employ some kind of means (like a conundrum) that make it impossible to form a morale or message.

[konchog uma]

Isn't a koan supposed to be a story that makes one think and this process guiding the way? The stories presented here as koans appear to have a relatively obvious morale in them, a message that can be summed up.

The koans I've heard usually employ some kind of means (like a conundrum) that make it impossible to form a morale or message.

 

yeah i guess in the classic sense, its not a koan riddle with a transcendental answer.

 

its more like a weird story with the word dao in it

 

sorry