Tongue Tied

Shuzan’s Bamboo Spatula

Master Shuzan held out his bamboo spatula and asked, “If you call this a bamboo spatula, you give umbrage (to the principle of Zen). If you call this no bamboo spatula, you violate the law (of common-sense). What will all of you call this?”


The Commentary

Should you call this a bamboo spatula, you would give umbrage. Should you call this no bamboo spatula, you would betray the law. Both to speak out will not do, and no word will be of any use either. Quickly say, quickly say!


The Verse
Bringing out the bamboo spatula,
Shuzan demanded the order of life or death.
Being put to either the umbrage or the betrayal,
Even Buddha and Patriarchs would beg for their lives.

A Scientific Heresy

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."--Albert Einstein

A Puzzling State of Mind

Joshu asked Nansen, “What is the way?”

Nansen answered, “Your ordinary mind--that is the way.”

Joshu said, “Does it go in any particular direction?"

Nansen replied, “The more you seek after it, the more it runs away.”

Joshu: “Then how can you know it is the way?”

Nansen: “The way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is illusion. Not knowing is lack of discrimination. When you get to this perplexed way, it is like the vastness of space, an unfathomable void, so how can it be this or that, yes or no?”

Upon this Joshu came to a sudden realization.

--As translated by R.H. Blyth

Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki reminds us what is true intuitive activity: "So even if the sun were to rise from the west, the Bodhisattva has only one way. His way is in each moment to express his nature and his sincerity."

Unseen Advantage

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”― Groucho Marx

Waste Not

"Up to now in this country we are warned not to waste our time but we are brought up to waste our lives."--Eric Hoffer

What Is It?

What is meditation? To sincerely ask the question of yourself is the very act of meditating. It is not something you do for 30 minutes a day, but a practice that evokes awareness moment-by-moment. There is no escaping reality.

Krishnamurti explains...

But meditation is part of everyday existence; it is something that you have to do as you breathe, as you think, as you live, as you have delicate or brutal feelings. That is real meditation, and it is entirely different from systematized mediation which some of you so sedulously practice.

Like a good teacher, Krishnamurti leads you back to yourself. He is not a guru, but he does invite you to think over the question of what is meditation with him...

I would like, if I may, to go into this question of meditation, but please do not be mesmerized by my words. Don't become suddenly meditative; don't become very intent to discover what is the goal of true meditation. The meditation of which I speak has no goal, no end....

We are going on a journey together, and when on a journey you can take along only what is absolutely essential. The journey of which I am speaking is very swift, there is no abiding place, no stopping, no rest; it is an endless movement, and a mind that is burdened is not free to travel.

Krishnamurti adds the following warning...

A petty mind cannot take the journey into itself. But if through these words you are becoming aware of you own thoughts, your own state, then there is no guru.

In his talk, Krishnamurti then explores what meditation is not--it is not concentration, it is not some form of thought control, or the suppression of desires. It is not what is recognizable or known. He concludes that meditation is "the freeing of the mind from the known." He adds...

It is open, not to the sannyasis [a Hindu religious mendicant], not to the dehydrated human beings who have suppressed themselves and who no longer have any passion, but to everyone whose mind is in the state of meditation from moment to moment.

To more fully explore this question with Krishnamurti, see his Second Talk in Madras from his book The Revolution Within.

The Lone Crusader

Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living.--Albert Einstein

Like the crusader of medieval times, like Don Quixote himself, vow to live your life courageously. Hold high the banner of Truth as you set out to reclaim the world as your own.