Gudo was the emperor’s teacher of the time. Nevertheless he used to travel alone as a wandering mendicant. Once when he was on his way to Edo, the cultural and political centre of the shogunate, he approached a little village called Takenaka. It was evening and a heavy rain was falling. Gudo was throroughly wet. His straw sandles were in pieces. At a farmhouse near the village he noticed four or five pairs of sandals in the window and decided to buy some fresh ones. The woman who offered him the sandals, seeing how wet he was, invited him to remain for the night in her home. Gudo accepted, thanking her. He entered and recited a sutra before the family shrine. He then was introduced to the woman’s mother and to her children. Observing that the entire family was depressed, Gudo asked what was wrong.
“My husband is a gambler and a drunkard” the housewife told him." When he happens to win he drinks and becomes abusive. When he loses he borrows money from others. Sometimes when he becomes thoroughly drunk he doesn’t come home at all. What can I do?"
“I will help him” said Gudo. “Here is some money. Get me a gallon of fine wine and something good to eat. Then you may retire. I will meditate before the shrine.”
When the man of the house returned about midnight quite drunk he bellowed: “Hey wife, I am home. Have you got something for me to eat?”
“I have something for you.” Said Gudo, “I happened to be caught in the rain and your wife kindly asked me to remain here for the night. In return I have brought some wine and fish, so you might as well have them.”
The man was delighted. He drank the wine at once and laid himself down on the floor. Gudo sat in meditation beside him.
In the morning when the husband awoke he had forgotten about the previous night. “Who are you? Where do you come from?” he asked Gudo who was still meditating.
" I am Gudo of Kyoto and I am going to Edo"
The man was utterly ashamed. He apologized profusely to the teacher of the emperor.
Gudo smiled: “Everything in this life is impermanent,” he explained. “Life is very brief. If you keep on gambling and drinking you will have no time left to accomplish anything else, and you will cause your family to suffer too.”
The perception of the husband awoke as if from a dream. “You are right,” he declared. “How can I ever repay you for this wonderful teaching! Let me see you off and carry your things a little way.”
“If you wish,” assented Gudo.
The two started out. After they had gone three miles Gudo told him to return. “Just another five miles.” he begged Gudo. They continued on.
“You may return now,” suggested Gudo.
“After another ten miles,” the man replied
“Return now,” said Gudo, when the ten miles had been passed.
“I am going to follow all the rest of my life,” declared the man.
It is said modern Zen teachers in Japan spring from the lineage of a famous master who was the successor of Gudo. His name was Mu-nan, the man who never turned back.
I really liked that…
Speaking of Zen, i remember I did a presentation on it last year… i learned alot from it… Hopefully so did others.
I vote we have a thread devoted to Koans.
heres one i used last year…
“Who’s on First?” Zen-style.
“I am going to pose a question,” King Milinda said to Venerable Nagasena. “Can you answer?”
Nagasena said, “Please ask your question.”
The king said, “I have already asked.”
Nagasena said, “I have already answered.”
The king said," What did you answer?"
Nagasena said, “What did you ask?”
The king said, “I asked nothing.”
Nagasena said, “I answered nothing.”
There are few others id like to post, but the explanations for them takes pages … later maybe…these are just a couple of koans which don’t need to be explained… you just think about them… err… not that koans are supposed to make sense…
Learning To Be Silent
The pupils of the Tendai school used to study meditation before Zen entered Japan. Four of them who were intimate friends promised one another to observe seven days of silence.
On the first day all were silent. Their meditation had begun auspiciously, but when night came and the oil lamps were growing dim one of the pupils could not help exclaiming to a servant: “Fix those lamps.”
The second pupil was surprised to hear th first one talk. “We are not supposed to say a word,” he remarked.
“You two are stupid. Why did you talk?” asked the third.
“I am the only one who has not talked,” concluded the fourth pupil.
Although i like the first one better, if you think about it this one also has profound meaning dealing with the denial of the self…etc…
okok… last one…
Student: “What is Zen?â€
Master: “It is right before your eyes.â€
Student: “So why cant I see it?â€
Master: “Because you have a ‘me’.â€
Student: “If I no longer have the concept ‘me’ will I realize Zen?â€
Master: “If there in no ‘me’ who wants to realize Zen?â€
heh heh … that one’s gold!
Thank you Buddha and silver, those were really enlightening. It astonishes me sometimes, that we have present in us such knowledge and so few find it. Even less us it. What’s worst of all is, for those who have both realized the knowledge within them and applied it, are segregated or exiled by society…destined to be alone. Ah, I can’t help but be pessimistic in this sense. Sorry, didn’t want to put a dark cloud over the beautiful words of wisdom you have presented here.
I like Zen, but most who teach it speak in riddles.
To me Zen is realising that everything in the universe is made from the same base material. And because we are all a form of this base material it’s the notion of self that separates us from others. Nothing else, it’s all mental. It’s like being underwater in a swimming pool, and then opening our mouths to feel like we are making the water more apart of ourselves. It’s because we feel we need to make the water apart of us that shows we are unenlightened. As the enlightened person knows that the water and the body are the same, but the self is what’s causing the problem of this perception. The only way the term ‘I’ can be used is if it refers to everything that exists, because as soon as ‘I’ is limited to self you’re no longer enlightened. The word ‘You’ is also just as evil in Zen as ‘I’. Because of the way the English language is, it’s very difficult to express Zen correctly.
The interesting thing about Zen is: As soon as you become enlightened all other unenlightened people vanish. 
PV
So the universe is one giant I looking at itself?
The Universe is the only thing that can say ‘I’, as it’s all.
Now we are getting somewhere.
Absolutely 
; the observer is one holistic field that experience itself. What makes you you is the information that you have collected. What makes you separated is the barrier between other areas of information in the field. Satori or instant Zen, is the state when the individual is cured from it’s holistic schizophrenia. This does not mean that all information will disappear; the dynamics will continue to form your body, and even if much abstact thinking will leave your system you will have intuitive knowledge about how to move your body and form your reality. The difference is that you now only will have relevant knowledge; intuitive knowledge. The experience is however temporary if not practiced every day, and the different state of mind is a surprice every time it happens. So it’s correct that it’s not easy to get close with logic. What makes us human is abstract thinking, and when we get dehumanized we will not see the reality with the same eyes and logic.
Johan
To give it a name is not quite right, it’s about seeing everything, and realising that we are just as much a part of the universe as the universe is part of us. To see it, as a God or a Beyond is to see separation, were there is none. In hindsight when I hear Jesus say, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.†I now always see this in the terms of Zen and Eastern Mysticism, as the realisation of unity of all and the forsaking of self.
PV
I totally agree; the mystic aspect only exist as long as the dualistic perspective exist. The beyond is only a reality when you are not there, and when you are there you can not see from where you came, beacuse you have not traveled. But when you fall back to the dualistic perspective again you once again see they beyond, and think that you must travel to come back.
Separation of the substance is not a reality: It’s a holistic field
Separation is a subjective experience: Individuals are dynamic movements in the field. Separation is a subjective experience depending of communication limitations in the field.
Johan
I’m glad so many people have found interest in this little story. Pax_Vitae is right there is no beyond as there is nowhere else to be.
Johan is right also. his reference was to moving away from illusion through enlightenment.
What are your personal experiences? My experience of this was first the worst experience in my life because I realized that I had become a human, but after that it was as it should. After this I came back, and I’m not experiencing this right now when I write this. I would not be writing this if I experienced it. It all happend now however.
I’m on the outside, but I know how to get in. I only have to find out that I do.
Johan
Hello Johan, thanks for your question, personal experiences often seem the most interesting - for the individual at least.
Perhaps the reason for your dilemma is the pressure placed upon your actions by the “modern” world around you and demands it makes upon ones time and physical activities. If this is the case; and apologies in advance if it is not, what we see as our enlightened self and our day to day survival self can become seperated. It seems at times to be impossible to be perfectly at one when for example there are work deadlines, babies to feed, etc. If this seperation does occur we will achieve a state of temporary enlightenment many times, each time falling back into self-illusion. I say these things because this has been my experience, it is my belief and my hope that gradually the temporary enlightenments become more frequent and last longer until there is no more returning. I hope this is of some use to you.
I don’t know about you guys, but for me when I get those flashes of enlightenment and then they pass. I can only remember them in the form of self, meaning it’s impossible for me to see them in any other way. Only what can be understood by the self is retained, while what was there in that moment is left missing, I know its gone, but I don’t actually know what is gone, and I wouldn’t know its gone other then the feeling of loss I have.
I also wonder about Subjectivity and Objectivity from a Zen perspective. To think is an individual act, so it must always be subjective. To do objective thinking is impossible, unless you can realise all things. It leaves me asking the question, is the universe self-aware? While I said in a previous post, that only the universe can say ‘I’, as it’s all. Does it? Does it see itself as separate parts interacting? Like the way we say, I use the brain to think, and the hearth to pump blood. Does it see the parts that make up its’ whole as individual defining them by their function? Is the universe enlightened, or can it even be enlightened?
PV
The Buddha,
This I know. Even though I’m trying to let go of many fictive patterns it’s hard. It’s a pending, and in the best moment I’m there. After I got a son (now 3 years old) there are more demands that have effect on me from fictive systems. I will work harder to experience less of this. If I’m not there I’m not able to describe it, and when I’m there I have no need to describe it. Our need to describe it comes from paradoxes and duality; without the paradox there is no information to discuss about. Everything that I talk about in my other posts would just be information that should remove other information.
Yes; thinking is subjective, but experiencing the reality is objective. To see the connections and functions in the harmony is objective.
Because there is not a dualistic God outside the field that is aware of the whole system I would say that the universe is not self-aware. The relevant question is: Will I come to the point when I’m aware about all processes in my dynamic field? Sorry; I have forgot. But I know that I understood it, and that I’m thinking wrong now. And if I knew I would probably not be writing it here. The only point when the field does not experience itself as separated would be in a black hole when all dynamic become coherent and streamline. But on the other hand what would the field experience then?
The universe is self-aware but limited in it’s experience about all dynamic structures. The universe is not looking out from a pair of eyes and from a centrum; but it have receptors in the whole field. We have two pair of eyes and each eye is connected to one of the brain’s halves. If we cut off the connection between the brainhalves and split the vision with a barrier we would have two separate persons with separate views, and they would not be aware about what the other is doing. (experiment have been done)
Johan
Hi Johan, it’s clear to me you have a deep and sophisticated mental appreciation of this topic, however as this approach is not currently yielding rich rewards in terms of bringing you forth in contentment from this maze, I suggest the following:
Meditate.
Meditate, and
Meditate again.
Perhaps through some simplicity you will find what you need at this time to move forward, remember there is only so much one can achieve in a life-time.
Thank you Buddha.
Johan
thank you also
You sure do make this subject confusing. What do you mean by paradoxes and duality? I understand the concept of monism in Buddhism but what does that have to do with paradoxes and duality?
Please go into more detail on this experiment and what you feel that it proves. I am very interested to hear your further thoughts.
-Skep
Also, I am interested in both of your thoughts on meditation. Isn’t meditation no more than disassociation from reality? It seems that meditation is a wonderful way to escape or relieve stress but I find no real answers in clearing your mind. Answers come from filling your mind and thinking. What are your thoughts?