2003-06-20 22:11:30 ET

my all time favorite koan....

"he would always answer with one finger"....a famous roshi in the soto sect of zen buddhism would always answer any question by holding up one finger....one day he took in a student who started to mimic his roshis strange way of ansering questions...one day in respone to a question the student held up one finger, and immedately the roshi grabbed and cut off the finger...in the middle of the students screams of pain the roshi yelled out the students name, and when the student looked up at him the roshi held up the students one finger....seeing this the student was enlightened....


2003-06-20 22:37:13 ET

enlightenment is within?

2003-06-21 01:32:11 ET

wtf?

2003-06-22 09:17:20 ET

the one finger the master would hold up was to signify the singular nature over the duality that we continually see...you know...black white, good evil, right wrong, ....binary...logic...

when the student started to mimic this he had no idea what it ment, the master knew this and cut off his freaking finger....

and i guess the student reached enlightenment after he saw his own finger...the enlightenment reached was probably...."holy sh!T my master is a pyscho"...zen is a dangerious gig...in seshin you sit for 8 hours for two to five days, and when you start to nod of, or lose posture...you get corrected...with a bambo stick across the shoulders

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