A Hungry Ghost

Koan:

Save a Hungry Ghost

Yesterday I thought about how the fulfillment of a desire doesn't end craving. Maybe it does for the first few bites, but then we start worrying about how much the ice cream cost, or whether it will make us fatter, or whether it will give us cavities. So we can't even enjoy the ice cream. Or we might, and then instantly start craving something else. Hunger isn't ended by feeding. Suffering is caused by craving, but is ended by other means than eating (i.e., the Eightfold Path).

River #2

Koan:

Stop the fighting across the river.

This is a great lesson on what I can do. And hopefully, if I stop fighting, there will be a little less war.

River #1

Koan:

Stop the fighting across the River.

I'm surprised how agitated I appear in the drawing. Now it is almost six months after I drew this, and I see myself as the one with the peace [sic] pipe and the man sleeping on the beach as the one I'd like to be. I tried to represent the fighting as a bunch of twisted branches in a fire. I wish I could stop the fighting. And I wonder whether the fighting is really occurring.

Ol' Monk

Koan:

Without using your hands, make this old priest get up.”

I was on the phone with a grammar school and high school classmate earlier today. I asked him if he saw himself as an old person, being almost 80. He kept saying, “That's a really good question.” I said, ”Growing up, we'd call someone who was almost 80 old." “Yes,” he replied.

Thinking of these koans as tricky puzzles is where I go wrong. Better to be naive and uncomplicated.

Siblings #2

Koan:

The girl over there, is she the elder or the younger sister? If the student is a woman: That guy over there, is he the younger or older brother?

Gradually I've been learning that there really is no “over there.” Photographers say that the subject of a photograph is the photographer. Perhaps the subject of a koan is the reader.

Siblings #1

Koan:

Gradually I've been learning that there really is no “over there.” Photographers say that the subject of a photograph is the photographer. Perhaps the subject of a koan is the reader. The girl over there, is she the elder or the younger sister? If the student is a woman: That guy over there, is he the younger or older brother?”

This suggested a little suspicion (paranoia?) in me when I jumped to the conclusion that maybe someone was trying to fool me, like the kid who sold me a two-headed nickel, only to discover it had been soldered together. Koans are another lesson to exhibit curiosity rather than jumping to conclusions.

Sailboat

Koan:

How do you become one with a sailboat?”

Hsin Hsin Ming: “...in this ‘not two’ nothing is separate, and nothing in the world is excluded.” In the storm, one feels part of the boat as it rocks violently from side to side.

An Immovable Tree

Koan:

Show me an immovable tree in a heavy storm.

I like the paradox of an immovable tree in a heavy story. It reminds me of Suzuki Roshi's statement that if it isn't a paradox it isn't true. And, also of the story about the man in the hut who is unmoved by the beautiful woman. Is either possible? And yet, we can try to be a rock that is firmly set in the ground even when the earth is shaking.