Reflections on Talks on Buddha's Lists
During a recent Appamada Intensive our students gave talks on Buddha's lists. Here are my reflections on their talks.
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Rhinoceros Fan (an infamous koan) One day Yanguan called to his attendant, "Bring me the rhinoceros fan." The attendant said, ...
1 comment:
This reminds me of some story that I love but forget where it came from. The idea is that whenever the student asked their teacher some question the only response was "Don't know". No matter what was asked that was always the same response from the teacher and this is perfect for so many reasons. It admits that the teacher doesn't know the answer. Or at least not in the typical sense of an answer. And once we 'know' something it proves that we don't really know anything in the first place. And it's also advice to the student to 'not know'. [You get what I'm saying.]
But, yeah, I always imagined if I had no choice but to get knuckle tattoos that the only thing I'd want would be DON'T KNOW. But I'd never had/heard it qualified/expanded before and the idea of not knowing is the most intimate makes it so much more powerful to me.
Thanks for sharing this.
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