The Answer to a Koan

Last night was the first time in a long time that I had trouble sleeping due to heat. Well, actually, I’m one of those people who a) head hits pillow b) sleep. So, having trouble sleeping is anomalous.

My goodness it is hot! It is hot. It is humid. And, as I mentioned yesterday, the only relief is in the air conditioned Dharma hall. But I’m up on the third floor, not the living hell I’ve heard for those on the fourth floor, but close enough…

So, I’m sitting here with a bit less sleep than the normal hour short that I live with…

The upscale quality of Garrison is enjoyable and feels a bit over the top. But bringing it back to ground is their second rate treatment of coffee. Before eight the only access to my drug of choice is a bubbler with a hot water attachment and Folger’s crystals. Fortunately I was aware of this from my last sojourn here for a conference of Unitarian Universalist Buddhists and I have a french press and some ground beans from my beloved Coffee Exchange in Providence.

Sitting here in the lounge where I have web access sipping my morning cuppa, contemplating my sins and enjoying the others who have some inner necessity to type things up and send them to the aethers, I realize that I omitted something that Jack Kornfield told us last night that I wanted to share. He had a couple of anecdotes he told, one from the common recollection of the Western Dharma community about master Seung Sahn meeting Kalu Rimpoche, the roshi holding up an orange and asking the Zenish question, a koan of sorts, “What is this?” and the lama asking his interpreter, “What? Don’t they have oranges in his country?”

But then Jack told a story I’d never heard before right out of my direct lineage. And about koans…

Jack described another of these big Buddhist teacher gatherings, in this case where the elderly roshi Robert Aitken was present, having already announced this would be his last such public foray ahead of his retirement.

Jack told how he’d screwed up his courage and asked, as the roshi was retiring, would he give the answer to a koan, just one?

Aitken, who is somewhat long and lanky got up out of his chair, at this point beginning the physical decline, so quite slowly, stood up in front of the assembly.

He then told about how when a young Zen student visiting with Nyogen Senzaki (Jack said Boston, the corrected himself to New York. It seems more likely to me either LA or San Francisco) how his old teacher held up a glass sphere with a spiral of bubbles inside it. Senzaki, asked “Does it turn to the right? Or does it turn to the left?”

Then Aitken Roshi held his arms out wide and slowly, in front of the assembly, turned to the right. Then, slowly he turned to the left.

When he finished his presentation of the koan, he made a small bow to the community and, slowly, carefully, sat down.

Real koan.

Real answer….