{"id":794,"date":"2012-01-07T10:53:47","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T16:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/?p=794"},"modified":"2012-01-08T08:25:58","modified_gmt":"2012-01-08T14:25:58","slug":"what-what-is-it-isnt-and-who-gets-to-say-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2012\/01\/what-what-is-it-isnt-and-who-gets-to-say-anyway.html","title":{"rendered":"What “What is it?” Isn’t and Who Gets to Say Anyway?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Here\u2019s the Bodhi dog asking \u201cWhat is it?\u201d in his 100% doggie way.<\/p>\n

By the way, the talks from the Boundless Way Rohatsu 2011 are now up here<\/a> (encouragement talks are listed first and then the talks by the teachers \u2013 Melissa Blacker gave the first teisho, David Rynick the second, Dosho the third, and we all chimed in on the fourth \u2013 probably our best collaboration to date imho).<\/p>\n

The theme for the sesshin was Xuefeng\u2019s \u201cWhat is it?\u201d (Blue Cliff 51 and Book of Serenity 50):<\/p>\n

When Xuefeng was living in a hermitage, two monks came to pay their respects. When he saw them coming, Xuefeng thrust open the gate of his hermitage and jumped out, asking, \u201cWhat is it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the monks also said, \u201cWhat is it?\u201d Xuefeng hung his head and went back inside.<\/em><\/p>\n

The koan goes on to deal with the last word of Zen but that\u2019s not what I\u2019m interested in today so I\u2019ll ignore that part for now.<\/p>\n

I also got an email notice recently from a San Francisco Zen priest, Dairyu Michael Wenger, in part about his book, 49 Fingers<\/em>. Check out his blog with a really nice \u201cWhat is it?\u201d painting here<\/a>. Michael describes 49 Fingers<\/em> as \u201c\u2026a collection of 49 American Koans, written in traditional case, commentary, verse format alongside 22 of my original brush works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCase 47: What is it?\u201d is a great scene that\u2019s been kicked around a lot so you probably have seen it but in case you haven\u2019t I copy it here:<\/p>\n

When Seung Sahn<\/a> (1927-2004) met Kalu Rinpoche<\/a>, they were seated at a table. Seung Sahn pointed to an orange and said, \u201cwhat is it?\u201d Rinpoche did not respond. Sahn Sunim repeated, \u201cWhat is it?\u201d Rinpoche turned to his attendant and asked, \u201cDon\u2019t they have oranges in Korea?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I heard this story some time ago, perhaps embellished, with the wild Korean monk picking up the orange and shoving it in the refined Tibetan master\u2019s face, shouting repeatedly \u201cWhat is it?\u201d I bust my gut laughing at Kalu\u2019s fresh presentation.<\/p>\n

Michael\u2019s refined version works too, of course.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to make just two unrefined points now. First, when it comes to \u201cWhat is it?\u201d who gets to say? And second, what \u201cWhat is it?\u201d isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Who gets to say?<\/em> is a tough issue. Soto priests without koan training comment on koans regularly (including myself in my nefarious past). Koan Zen teachers without direct training in Dogen\u2019s teachings speak definitively about Dogen. I\u2019ve heard a well-known Vipassana teacher go on and on (and way off) about Mu.<\/p>\n

And this isn\u2019t limited to the dharma<\/a> whirl. Nobel laureates famously develop a halo effect and have been known to talk about areas (like racial genetics) that are far from their specialty. And we are suspicious for good reason.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m of the school of thought that thinks that it\u2019s best to be really careful when importing something from another tradition and imputing meaning based on our training and background to it \u2013 because we might well miss the point. Rumi, for example, coming from his Islamic\/Sufi background, may well have had a depth of meaning, an angle on truth, that we modern Zennies cannot fathom.<\/p>\n

So at least qualifying our comments are in order, \u201cFrom my shikantaza training, here\u2019s what I think this koan is about,\u201d for example. For listeners, it\u2019s best to assume that such qualification is always implicit.<\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019ve done some koan training, I confess to this hubris in my own past and from my current perspective would like to encourage my Soto non-koan trained friends to consider the possibility that there might well be something in a koan that they have not seen from their shikantaza perspective.<\/p>\n

I suppose that goes for all of us all the time.<\/p>\n

I recently saw a comment on another blog saying that Zen (\u201cWhat is it?\u201d in this case) is whatever each of us say that it is. That\u2019s fine and dandy (and willy-nilly), of course, but it ignores the many practitioners in the past who really put their butts on the line to go beyond their own personal feelings about what Zen is and isn\u2019t and just might have discovered something beyond relative pluralism.<\/p>\n

In addition, and most importantly, by not engaging in the question (\u201cWhat is it?\u201d) with someone else with an open heart, we miss the opportunity to hear something like \u201cWell, there\u2019s a better answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then dig deeper into the issue at hand.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the point, you see. It\u2019s not about authority but about discovering the healing point of Zen, as Dogen put it.<\/p>\n

Koan Zen is likewise incredibly practical. The usual drool about what Zen is and isn\u2019t, is often just too mushy and spacey (in the guise of spaciousness) to bring home the bacon.<\/p>\n

So although \u201cWhat is it?\u201d is a question that can be asked forever, there is also a clear and powerful response that can be actualized while walking the dog or chewing the fat. And although \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d what Michael nicely calls \u201cstraightforward puzzlement\u201d might close the gap, it might well not be clear or powerful or compassionate enough to bark up the right tree.<\/p>\n

So when you hear, \u201cWhat is it?\u201d and think that you don\u2019t know,\u00a0 you might not be so sure about that.<\/p>\n

Your thoughts welcome.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s the Bodhi dog asking \u201cWhat is it?\u201d in his 100% doggie way. By the way, the talks from the Boundless Way Rohatsu 2011 are now up here (encouragement talks are listed first and then the talks by the teachers \u2013 Melissa Blacker gave the first teisho, David Rynick the second, Dosho the third, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":795,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat "What is it?" Isn't and Who Gets to Say Anyway?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's the Bodhi dog asking "What is it?" in his 100% doggie way. 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