Zen master Yuanwu commented:

“In Zen, it is not difficult for those of keen faculties and higher insight to attain a thousand understandings at one hearing.”

Here are examples of Zen remarks meant to inspire a thousand understandings at one hearing:

1.  “Show me your face before your parents were born!”

(Yuanwu’s comment quoted from ‘ZEN ESSENCE - The Science of Freedom’ - translated and edited by Thomas Cleary)

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Essence-Science-Shambhala-Classics/dp/1570620970      (click on customer reviews)

unsmoked - 18 February 2010 12:13 PM

Zen master Yuanwu commented:

“In Zen, it is not difficult for those of keen faculties and higher insight to attain a thousand understandings at one hearing.”

Here are examples of Zen remarks meant to inspire a thousand understandings at one hearing:

1.  “Show me your face before your parents were born!”

How does this inspire a thousand understandings at one hearing any more than “let me smell your farts before your grandparents were born”?  Excuse my sarcasm, but I just don’t see how questions like this clarify anything.

Bruce Burleson - 18 February 2010 12:54 PM

unsmoked - 18 February 2010 12:13 PM

Zen master Yuanwu commented:

“In Zen, it is not difficult for those of keen faculties and higher insight to attain a thousand understandings at one hearing.”

Here are examples of Zen remarks meant to inspire a thousand understandings at one hearing:

1.  “Show me your face before your parents were born!”

How does this inspire a thousand understandings at one hearing any more than “let me smell your farts before your grandparents were born”?  Excuse my sarcasm, but I just don’t see how questions like this clarify anything.

You are being asked if you can, for the moment, drop everything and be simple and naked.  In your own litany, this might be like someone asking you, “Can you become like a little child for a moment?”  For this reason, depending on your demeanor, a Zen master might consider a fart a good answer -  especially if he saw that it happened without forethought.

unsmoked - 18 February 2010 01:38 PM

For this reason, depending on your demeanor, a Zen master might consider a fart a good answer -  especially if he saw that it happened without forethought.

All of mine are afterthoughts.

Being like a child I can understand. Of course, a child is trusting, and that is a difficult mental state for most people around here.

Bruce Burleson - 18 February 2010 01:42 PM

unsmoked - 18 February 2010 01:38 PM

For this reason, depending on your demeanor, a Zen master might consider a fart a good answer -  especially if he saw that it happened without forethought.

All of mine are afterthoughts.

Being like a child I can understand. Of course, a child is trusting, and that is a difficult mental state for most people around here.

As I think about it, (which, I realize, is out of place here in the Buddhism category), even an afterthought fart has more reality in it than most of our ideas, recollected experiences, and notions about God.  Bruce, you’re going to Hollywood!  (I never thought you could respond appropriately to this in a hundred years!)

Being like a child is a difficult mental state for almost everyone, even for young children these days.  We might have to go to the far corners of the earth to find a child who isn’t already jaded and worldly wise - -  texting at age 3, I’ve heard.  For most religious people, including Christians, it is just about impossible to clear the mind of beliefs, ideas, experiences, even for a few minutes.  I’ve even heard a fundamentalist say that such a state would open them up to the wiles of the devil.  Apparently they have a Jesus loop running non-stop in the brain.

To begin with, it doesn’t hurt to contemplate what the mind of a young child is like.  A young child might look at white clouds passing in a blue sky, and that’s all there is.  In this reverie he might not even hear his name being called. 

Parent:  Billy!  What are you doing?  Snap out of it!

Billy:  The clouds.

The Zen teacher, having asked the student to “Show me your face before your parents were born,” doesn’t need much in the way of an answer -  some simple observation to demonstrate that you’re present.  The student who ‘gets it’ might say, “There’s a bug crawling under your mat.”

I know what you’re going to say.  When the master looks where you point, you’re going to say, “Just kidding.  No bug.”  No, a younger child than that.  That’s a four-year-old whose already been turned into a smart-ass.

unsmoked - 18 February 2010 07:17 PM

The student who ‘gets it’ might say, “There’s a bug crawling under your mat.”

But the child thing only gets you so far. If the bug is a black widow spider, then action is called for.  Otherwise you just sit back and die. “The bug is injecting me with fatal venom.”

You need to be in a bugless environment to become like a child. Very difficult.

Bruce Burleson - 19 February 2010 06:38 AM

You need to be in a bugless environment to become like a child. Very difficult.

A THOUSAND UNDERSTANDINGS AT ONE HEARING

2.  “If you become aware of getting at all stuck or blocked, this is all false thought at work.  Make yourself completely untrammeled . . . “

(quoted from ‘ZEN LETTERS - Teachings of Yuanwu’ - translated by J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary

http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Letters-Teachings-J-C-Cleary/dp/1570627037    - (click on customer reviews)

Bruce, if you are afraid of spiders, put yourself in a ‘bugless environment,’ your bathroom perhaps, and see if you can make yourself completely untrammeled for 30 seconds.  I’m not saying it’s easy.  If the arachnophobia is just too strong, try holding a can of OFF in one hand, and a fly swatter in the other.

Who is Zen master? Are you talking about can zen? Why don’t you just call him Bob? Thats what he signs at the end of every one of his thought provoking posts.

Surely there is only one Zen Master, and that is Bob.

eudemonia - 19 February 2010 11:41 AM

Who is Zen master? Are you talking about can zen? Why don’t you just call him Bob? Thats what he signs at the end of every one of his thought provoking posts.

Surely there is only one Zen Master, and that is Bob.

Okay, but right now we are trying not to provoke thoughts.

How about afterthoughts? Do those count as thoughts? Giving that some prethought myself.

eudemonia - 19 February 2010 01:41 PM

How about afterthoughts? Do those count as thoughts? Giving that some prethought myself.

If you go in to see Bob, (this interview is called ‘sanzen’), and answer your koan with a premeditated answer, then he will send you packing back to your meditation cushion where you will have afterthoughts about where you went wrong.

A THOUSAND UNDERSTANDINGS AT ONE HEARING

3.  What can be done at any moment is the true self.

i’m too lazy to read all this, what are we talking about in the buddhism forum?  i follow the triple gem, tho i dont necessarily consider myself a buddhist.  i ask because the topic sounds like u could be degrading buddhism.  (sorry im lazy, its like 2:00 AM)

Around 525 B.C. the aphorisms of K’ung Fu Tzu (Confucius) were known across the land.  His disciples wrote down his teachings.  Even the emperor quoted him.

From his home in the imperial city the great philosopher heard of Chang Yang Shu, an old farmer whose reputation as a Taoist sage was spreading.  With an entourage of his favorite students Confucius traveled far into the hinterlands to question this man.

At the farm, Chang’s wife was astonished to see the illustrious visitor.  She made them as comfortable as possible, prepared tea ,and sent a boy to summon her husband from his work in the fields.

When all were refreshed and seated around the hearth Confucius cut to the chase and said to the farmer, “Sir, even far away in the capitol scholars are speaking of you.  What is your teaching?”

The old man, blind in one eye, waved his hand in a self-deprecating way.  “I just sit and forget,” he said.

Confucius was startled.  He glanced at his entourage, all smiling in a patronizing way.  He stood up and bowed to his hosts.  Turning to the others he said, “I’m going to become this man’s student.”

what do u want me to say?  i personally do not think the two met each other.

J Kapp - 25 March 2010 01:10 PM

what do u want me to say?  i personally do not think the two met each other.

You may be thinking of Chung Tzu, a fabled Taoist master with many stories to his name.  I don’t think the old farmer mentioned above had more to say than, “I just sit and forget.”