{"id":37866,"date":"2023-03-29T12:46:14","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T19:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/?p=37866"},"modified":"2023-03-29T12:46:14","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T19:46:14","slug":"nelson-mandela-raises-his-fist-a-meditation-on-a-zen-koan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/monkeymind\/2023\/03\/nelson-mandela-raises-his-fist-a-meditation-on-a-zen-koan.html","title":{"rendered":"Nelson Mandela Raises his Fist: A Meditation on a Zen Koan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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Nelson Mandela Raises his Fist: A Meditation on a Zen Koa<\/strong><\/em>n<\/h3>\n

James Ishmael Ford<\/a><\/p>\n

The Case<\/strong><\/p>\n

Zhaozhou Congshen went to a hermit\u2019s cottage. At the entrance he called out, \u201cAnybody in? Anybody in?\u201d The hermit appeared in the doorway and lifted up his fist. Zhaozhou replied, \u201cThe water is too shallow for a ship to anchor.\u201d And he left. Later, he went to a hermit\u2019s cottage and at the entrance asked, \u201cAnybody in? Anybody in?\u201d This hermit lifted up his fist, as well. Zhaozhou said, \u201cFreely you give, freely you take away, freely you kill, freely you give life.\u201d And he made his bows.<\/em><\/p>\n

Gateless Gate<\/em><\/a>, Case 11<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always loved this case. For several reasons. One, of course, is how it builds in a bit of ambiguity. Is Zhaozhou visiting different hermits, or is he revisiting the same hermit?<\/p>\n

Also, for me, at least, it echoes other koans. In the same collection, Case 26<\/a>, where Fayen asks two monks to roll up blinds, and case 42, where Mansusri and the Bodhisattva of Delusive wisdom meet a young woman meditating, come to mind.<\/p>\n

Or, for my money, one of the most interesting of the whole collection, case 2<\/a>. While Wumen claims the koans in his anthology are just randomly collected, I notice the first case is the great invitation into the koan of not knowing, the very next deals with the matter of how we meet the world. Kind of the whole matter of the koan way in two koans. For which the rest can be read as commentary.<\/p>\n

Well, except when we\u2019re invited to look at the matter once again. Here the case invites us into the meeting of the great mystery and our very lives. Perhaps presented in a bit lower stakes than with the fox. But, then, maybe not.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure when I first realized the power of raising a clenched fist.<\/p>\n

Maybe my first sense of it as a child was being yelled at to \u201cGet off my lawn,\u201d by a fist waving old man. Which may be an actual memory. Or, one that attached itself to me, somewhere along the line from cartoons and television shows.<\/p>\n

I can see that hermit, or those hermits telling Zhaozhou to stop bothering them, and to be on his way. I like that image, for sure.<\/p>\n

And there are others, that linger in the heart. My heart. In 1913, silk mill workers went on strike in Patterson, New Jersey. Their demands centered on an eight-hour work-day. The strike was savagely broken, and along the way two of the strikers were killed. There\u2019s that.<\/p>\n

But also, in the middle of the strike, one of the organizers, Wobbly William Dudley Haywood, known best as \u201cBill Bill\u201d Haywood gave a speech. He held up his hand and told the audience they were like fingers. He then gathered the fingers into a fist saying this is how the sum can become greater than the parts. Possibly it was used in Europe a year before. But this is the earliest attestation to the use of a fist, at least in the US, that I find.<\/p>\n

Later, during the Spanish Civil War the clinched fist became an answer to the Fascist flat hand salute. In the 1960s it became identified with the Black Power movement, and in the 1970s it became a symbol of the rising women\u2019s consciousness and the Feminist movement.<\/p>\n

For me a raised fist evokes images of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1978 Summer Olympics. And of Nelson Mandela as he left the Victor Verster Prison in 1990.<\/p>\n

Raised fists. Lots of different raised fists.<\/p>\n

Returning to the koan as koan. As a presentation of an intimate truth bound up together with an invitation. Like fingers folded into a fist. Aitken Roshi reminds us that the cottage or hut for an hermit isn\u2019t going to be very big. And it\u2019s unlikely Zhaozhou is unclear about whether someone is present, or not. For the roshi it reminds him of one of his teachers, using the Japanese \u201cAriya?\u201d Or, maybe it\u2019s a shout, \u201cAriya!\u201d \u201cAre you there?\u201d Are you there!\u201d As Aitken Roshi notes, old Zhaozhou liked to test the depth of the water.<\/p>\n

Me, I also find an invitation here. The old school yard call, \u201cOlly, olly, oxen free.\u201d Come home, come home!<\/p>\n

Maybe even, come home, all is forgiven. Come home. Many shades here.<\/p>\n

The Rinzai master Zenkei Shibayama offers as comment a verse from an unnamed worthy.<\/p>\n

Whether to call it crazy or rude<\/em>
\nI leave it to someone else to judge.<\/em>
\nPeach blossoms are by nature pink;<\/em>
\nPear blossoms by nature white<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A reminder of where and how to look. It\u2019s like encountering a semi-feral cat. You can\u2019t reach out, you have to wait, and allow it to present. Pink. White. The fragrance alone instructs, invites.<\/p>\n

If we are willing to bow into the koan as a huatou or a koan, the Chan master Guo Gu offers some pointers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way to try to get a handle on this case is to keep questioning it. If you meditate like this, you will generate the sense of great questioning. If you rely on logic, you will get nowhere. If you think one hermit is better than the other, you don\u2019t have what it takes to investigate Chan. If you think they\u2019re equal, you also don\u2019t have what it takes to investigate Chan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Old advice. And the best advice. We need to bring our deep curiosity. In some settings it can be that burning coal lodged in the esophagus. But in most of our lives, these ordinary lives with jobs or careers and rent or mortgage, with many things pulling at our hearts and calling for our attention; just being curious. A wonderful thing curiosity. It may kill a cat on occasion, but it also invites mysteries. And, here, one in particular.<\/p>\n

What happens when we have two things that seem no different, but one is shallow and the other deep?<\/p>\n

With that Guo Gu reminds us of Wumen\u2019s gift in this collection and in this case. \u201cHe forces you to have nowhere to advance, nowhere to retreat.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the conundrum of our lives, our real lives, mixed up, of course, with our imaginal lives; what is presenting? How is the ordinary and the mystery the same and different?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s my offering. Like with those other pointers to that meeting of the mystery and our individual lives, it takes many shapes. Protest. Solidarity. I love Big Bill\u2019s words about fingers and fists. Are they one? Or are they two?<\/p>\n

Or are we being invited into something rather wonderful? Something as shallow as a puddle in the street, something as deep as the Mariana Trench.<\/p>\n

Our whole lives presented. Get off my lawn. Nelson Mandela walking out of prison.<\/p>\n

Now this. Now that.<\/p>\n

Songs of the world.<\/p>\n

Songs of the great empty\u2026<\/p>\n

One? Two?<\/p>\n

Or simply a clenched fist?<\/p>\n