Spring Koans at Creek Bend
Jizo Bodhisattva, or Ksitigarbha, Earth-Store, “protector of children and guide through the underworld,” as we sometimes chant, is often met at the doorways to Buddhist temples, witnessing the comings and goings of all of us, our lives, our heart-minds. Just standing by, in the midst of us, or traveling with his staff through all the paths.
His vow is sometimes represented this way: “If I do not go to hell to help the suffering beings there, who else will go? … if the hells are not empty I will not become a Buddha. Only when all living beings have been saved, will I attain Bodhi.”
So here is Jizo, standing outside the door of Creek Bend Zendo, looking very much like one who has “the mind of Winter” and is savoring the taste of snow. Greeting all beings, coming or going. A person with nothing to do.
Today he seems the very image of koan practice. And so he comes along here to invite you to join in our series of six koan gatherings for Spring.
Here’s the info:
Saturdays, 10 Am to Noon
March 16, 23, 30; April 6, 13, 20
Creek Bend Zendo
Contact: Sarah Bender sembender@gmail.com
Open to everyone; no previous experience necessary
donations are gratefully received but not required
If you wish to be on the email list for the series and receive the koans ahead of time, you need to send an email to Sarah at the above address.
Hitting “reply” for this email will send you up a side alley.
Here are a couple of koans for this Saturday, to get us going.
Is this difficult? Is this easy?
Layman P’ang was sitting in his thatched cottage one day.
“Difficult, difficult, difficult,” he suddenly exclaimed, “to scatter ten measures of sesame seed all over a tree!”
“Easy, easy, easy,” returned Mrs. P’ang, “just like touching your feet to the ground when you get out of bed.”
“Neither difficult nor easy,” said their daughter, Ling-chao. “On the hundred grass-tips, the Ancestors’ meaning.”
And this one: If there is nothing to fix, nothing to accomplish, what about this?
This is true yoga: the unbinding
of the bonds of sorrow. Practice
this yoga with determination
and with a courageous heart.
from the Bhagavad Gita