Summary
➡ This text talks about the wisdom found in Zen stories and how they can teach us to handle life better. It shares a story about a man who keeps hurting himself, showing that we often make our problems worse when we’re upset. It also tells a tale about a cook who becomes a monastery master by showing that reality is beyond words. Lastly, it shares stories about Zen masters who don’t take life or death seriously, teaching us to not be too attached to things and to let go of constant desires.
➡ This text talks about the concept of Wu Wei, which is about going with the flow and not forcing things. It uses the example of a seed falling from a tree, which doesn’t try hard but still achieves its goal. The text also suggests that when we’re unsure about a decision, we should choose the path that feels right, instead of overthinking. It emphasizes the importance of staying calm and present in the moment, even when planning for the future, and how this can positively affect those around us.
Transcript
The intellect is an afterproduct of consciousness. It depends on form filtered through the senses, then uses symbols, words and numbers to organize thought, a distillation of experience only knowing a linear form of reasoning. In other words, the real self with a capital s has fallen asleep, and the logical survival state has abandoned its role as servant and cast its self groaning and complaining into the driver’s seat. Don’t blame yourself for this mix up.
You were born this way. Divine mind and animal body we have speculated quite a bit in prior videos as to how this came to be, but today let’s bring our attention to how the Zen masters transcend this limited outlook and more importantly, how obvious they made it out for everyone to do. Even your friend Sean. We all know what cohens are, but we really don’t. In the west, this word has been synonymous with the word riddle, but it is quite the opposite.
Cohen’s instead are a way of what is called in Zen, direct pointing. Think of a menu versus the actual food that it represents. After having a moment of Zen, or experience of the self with the cap s, it starts to seem like everyone around you is chasing nonsensical goals, as if chewing on the menu under hypnosis. The cohen is a paradox to the logical mind, but already solved by the higher, subtle mind.
It acts as a way to snap the person eating the paper menu out of their trance by directly pointing to the food. Now I realize that your friend Sean would probably just stare at the finger that is pointing, missing the meal that is obviously there. But at least he for a moment will stop chewing on the menu. And after sitting with this conscious paradox for some time, might come to the realization of the soul food that has been there all along.
The goal of the coen in Zen is to lead the listener to reflect on their logical habits and break them, doing so with total ease. As this is not to be confused with earth shattering gnosis or initiation. It is simply a return to home base, a home where everything is at peace and still. This is the world of Wu Wei, a word that translates to effortless living. We can realize our higher mind, and when we do, the logical mind goes back into the passenger seat and lives rested and trusting of its driver, who has been there since its birth.
Let’s take a not so logical look at these Cohens and see if we can snap Sean out of his hypnosis and into a higher state. And let’s explore how the art of effortless living might just benefit everyone. You where I’m going, you can’t go yet, dear. But when I get there, I’ll still be here. A quick preface to this video. I want to make it clear that I am not the best example of Zen and certainly not qualified to teach the subject.
After all, it really can’t be taught. I am scatterbrained, distracted, always looking fervently for the next level up. However, when I started applying the art of Wu Wei to my life, I saw consistent, gradual change. So we will be learning together as a community, as it is absolutely true that I learn as much from you guys as you do from me, and that’s a damn fact. So a proper example would be this very channel.
Every video I do, I go down like five new rabbit holes that can be their own video and add them to the list of over 30 now that I want to get to, and it causes me to have option paralysis. But focusing on Wu Wei has helped me flow with these ideas instead of forcing them. And I did notice a huge difference in the results of the channel after the application of this practice.
And to be clear, it is a practice. Awakening may or may not happen in an instant, and it is different for everyone. Eckhart Tolle had his all at once, in one sudden moment of clarity, while goggins had to gradually work at his slowly. But in any case, to hold onto it takes practice. I mean, you could know every single rule of football. You can know all the plays by memory, but without practicing the game, you ain’t worth a shit out on the field.
That notion is important because these cohens that we will be speaking of are said to cause instant enlightenment to those who hear them correctly. But what is less spoken about is that the listener who snapped out of his lower mind in that moment took the steps needed to maintain focus using his or her new mind, and kept their effortless living. There is a gray area in enlightenment. It is not an on and off switch, although it is romanticized to be that way on the Internet quite a bit.
So our favorite Zen man of the West, Alan Watts, describes Cohen’s as working like jokes. You have to catch the punchline, see the point, and laugh all at once. If the joke has to be dissected and explained, it falls flat. So even after Sean gets the joke, he will remain bereft of laughter. This is why cohens are like babies. Unlike alchemical manuscripts and religious doctrines, coens have no symbolic, hidden meaning to them.
You don’t have to be in the know to catch the joke. Basically, the point of the coen is instead so obvious that it is hard to see, as Alan says, like an eyeball trying to see itself. In fact, the more I explain the meaning of a cohen, the less good I have done. There is absolutely no use whatsoever in talking about these stories and sayings. So, that being said, let’s talk about them.
Bodhidharma came from India into China, and it was clear to all who encountered him that he was leveled up in some way. The zen was strong with this one, so strong, in fact, that those weeble wobble toys that they’re weighted at the bottom so you can kick it over and it won’t ever fall down. Those are derived from the likeness of this particular Buddha. Bodhidharma was not looking for disciples.
No, buddhas do. But a man named Hyuke insisted on learning what he had attained in true Zen fashion. Bodhi insisted to him that he had nothing to teach. But Hyuke did not take no for an answer. Instead, he cut off his arm and presented it to Bodhidharma. While standing in the cold snow, he cried out, my mind is not pacified, master. Pacify my mind. Where Bodhi finally says, if you bring me that mind, I will pacify it for you.
Phuke said, well, when I search for my mind, I cannot hold it or find it. The Buddha abruptly responded, then it is already pacified, creating what might be the first ko an. As Huque immediately got the joke, so to speak, and was thrust into his higher mind by this paradox. This paradox indicates that the seeker of peace of mind is actually looking for the one who is looking, basically solving itself through its own nonsensical nature.
When we try to find that self, we notice that nothing is there to be a self. There’s nothing to be affected. We instead only find patterns and relationships. Think of a whirlpool in a river. You cannot take grasp of a whirlpool because despite being a noun, it is actually a verb. The water comes, it goes, and it never returns, giving the illusion that this happening is actually a thing.
The whirlpool is an empty space, after all. Like an empty cup, the human being is exactly the same. We are particles that come and go, occasionally storing memories that make us think we are separate persons than others. But don’t let the storage folder of the memory fool you. You are also just water, like everyone else in the river. And you will come and go so swiftly that it is a wonder why anything can pain us at all.
Okay, so the next one. When a civilian asked, the Zen master called Touzen, what is the Buddha nature? Which would loosely translate to what is the truest nature of reality? Tozan gestured to a bag of seeds nearby and answered swiftly, this flax weighs three pounds and did not bother to clarify. This is where scholars often want to attribute meaning to the number three or to the symbolism of the flax being seeds, and we can have a lot of fun with that kind of speculation.
I mean, I certainly do. But in the way of Zen, it seems most likely that this answer was random and casual. It is the way that this deepest of questions was answered that leads to the meaning. It’s a vibe. These two stories are part of a collection called the gateless barrier, the title of which says it all. The path that you are seeking has no obstacles as you are already there.
So relax. Thick, not Han, whose name I’m mispronouncing, once wrote, with every step I take, I have arrived. I think it’s thick, not thick despite the h. But now I’m hoping to see memes of this particular buddha with a big old booty and thighs on them. It’s not really a pleasant thought. These Cohens transcend this particular literature. By the way, there is no canon here, no rules to this.
There is one that I like to tell that honestly, I don’t quite remember where I read it, but it has proven effective time and time again. It is said a man went to go see a doctor complaining that every time he punches himself in the leg that it hurt like hell. He demonstrated this by continuously punching himself in the leg, exclaiming, doctor, look at this, it hurts. The doctor interrupted quite brassly, saying, well, damn it, quit punching yourself in the leg.
And the man was cured. Now, you might be thinking, that’s dumb, nobody would be so ridiculous. And that is the response I get when I tell that story. But that response turns to epiphany real quick when later I see, say, a coworker becoming aggravated with a project, thus making things worse, as we know that an aggravated mind will not be sharper or more clear than a mind that is at rest.
Our actions and words, while aggravated, only exacerbate the problem. This is, of course, just like continuing to punch yourself in the leg after it already hurt the first time. And I’ll say it. I’ll say, hey, man, quit punching yourself in the leg. And oftentimes this little metaphor is enough to cause someone to see the nonsense behind his or her destructive actions. Hell, I’ll say it to myself when I’ve had a long week and I feel that steering wheel start to turn toward the liquor store I’ll remember.
Damn it, Joey, quit punching yourself in the leg knowing that an instant fix will only make things worse tomorrow. And my leg already hurts like a bitch. Another from the gateless barrier, though, tells the story of Yokujo, who needed a monk to open a new monastery. To choose one, he placed a picture of water on the ground and asked his followers to tell him what it was without saying its name.
The chief monk said, well, no one can call it a wooden shoe. But the cook named Esan walked over and kicked it over and just left. And as you might imagine, this little spill caused Esan to become the master of the new monastery. Because reality is beyond words. It is commented in the pages of the gateless barrier about this cohen that if I talk all the time and don’t listen, I’ll lose touch with my fellow man.
In the same way, if we think all the time, we lose touch with reality, the reality outside of constant thoughts and mental categories of logic. After all, thinking all the time is like chewing on that menu that represents the food instead of the food. Alan Watts adds to this that if he wanted you to listen to music, advising you to do so would only drown out the music.
The best way is to just put it on and not get in the way. The silence of meditation is like fasting from stimulation. This eventually causes us to get out of our own way and let the creative process flow into our work. We can treat life like a game and play, because, after all, that is what we are doing, just playing a part for a little while. And when the play ends, the heroes and the villains both come out to greet the crowd, and together they bow.
So what was all the drama for? That analogy sure does remind us of death and dying. We talk about that too much on this channel. So anyway, here are some great stories about death in Zen, some of which might even double as coens. Come to think of it, throughout history, Zen masters have died on purpose. In the funniest ways, these stories are inspiring. They show us that the very wisest men to have ever sat the earth did not take life or death seriously.
Legend has it that a truly realized being can control his heart rate, body temperature, immune system, et cetera, manually, just like they can with thoughts. Well, they can also die manually, and often did for a laugh or to dish out a tough lesson. We should be reminded of Wim Hof, who has scientifically proven under MRI machines to have those first three superhuman abilities. And of course, Eckhart Tolle, who has proven under EkG to be able to stop his mind chatter completely for over 7 seconds.
So the legends might be true or just co ins, I don’t know. Dead Zen master comedian numero uno Yao Shan shouted loudly, the dharma hall is falling. The monks rushed out to check the pillars and the crossbeams where Yao Shan laughed delightedly, mocking his students. He shouted while laughing, none of you understood my meaning and then just died. The student monks were overcome with grief at his death and began to mourn their loss.
When the Zen master woke back up for just long enough to say something along the lines of hey, that’s attachment, knock it off. And then re died. This time for good. I guess I’m just now realizing how difficult it would be to bury someone who can do that. They probably instead took him to a taxidermist and maybe that’s where we got the idea for yeah, he looks like a furb.
In China, there was an emperor who heard that catching the words of a Zen master often causes spontaneous awakening. He sent his servants to ask the nearest master when he would be welcome to arrive. But the Zen master told the emperor’s squad of messengers. He said, nah, I don’t have anything to teach. But kind of meant it like politicians are a waste of my time. The emperor was shocked because while he is pretty much the most respected figure, he sent more messengers promising money and gold and all kinds of horses or whatever.
After bugging the Zen master several times, the emperor finally got an invitation scheduled to a very specific time and date. The monks led him up the mountain to the temple where the Zen master resided. Upon entering the temple, the emperor exclaimed in excitement for this buddha to share his wisdom. And you guessed it, the Zen master looked him dead in the face, smiled and then died right in front of him.
And now that is dedication to the prank. Now one that is not so funny but still meaningful was the story of a great warrior of immense size and kill count who was pillaging through a little town on his way to contest the Zen master. When he got to the top of the mountain and into the temple, he walked right up to the Zen master with a real threatening vibe and the Zen master didn’t flinch or even blink.
This pissed off the warrior quite a bit who declared, don’t you see? I am the kind of man who could put his sword right through you and not even blink. The Zen master replied, what? Don’t you see? I am the only man who could have your sword go through me and also not blink. This caused the warrior to understand what true strength actually was. He fell to his knees before the Zen master and repented his killings, vowing to be his disciple, if so permissioned to be.
Now, I don’t know if he quite cut it as a disciple, but it is interesting to think about what was going through the warrior’s head when he beheld the magnitude of this man of Zen. To the warrior, they were two men of different equations. He assumed that the Zen master was a man that was looking up at him. What he realized is that in actuality, the Zen master was not a man, but instead the consciousness, a being.
Looking down at both the two men and most likely amusing itself with the interplay of these two characters, he could see that the master was not limited to his earthly vehicle and had no problem exiting the car when he so chose to. When we abandon everything to the point where there is nothing further to be abandoned, it is then that we are released from the bondage of birth and death.
This is the deepest of renunciations. And also, if you ask me, a bit of a superpower. I know I can’t do it. But man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is always chasing instead of letting it come. It reminds me of giving a kiddo a laser light for cats to chase. The more urgently the cats move, the faster the kids move the dot away.
But if the cat is, say, old and fat, it doesn’t chase the red dot. So what do the kiddos do? They put the red dot right in front of his paws. The universe is kind of in this way, a child’s play. This old fat cat has embraced the concept of Wu wei. After all, Dazu once said, to desire nirvana is what keeps us from it. In the song children of the corn by the band corn, the great Zen sage ice cube is the great Zen mast.
The great sage ice cube is versed with the statement, because life is a bitch, you know, it is everybody trying to get rich? Gosh darn, all I want to do is live. You can’t argue with that. You know those little helicopter seeds that fall spinning in the wind from a tree? What are they called? I don’t know. But Alan compares this to the flight of a bug or an airplane as a metaphor for Wu wei.
He asks which creature we find to be more advanced, so to speak. And we will easily say the bug and the airplane are more advanced because they can do more cool. But, he retorts, each one of these is indeed achieving its goal, no matter how big or small. In fact, the flight of the helicopter seed thingy is far more important. To the earth than the others. But this is where the Wu wei lesson resides.
Unlike the insect, bird, aircraft, et cetera, the helicopter seed thingy forces no effort in its endeavor, and still the job gets done, making it in the sense of Zen, at least the most advanced in the bunch. This reminds me of Zhao Zhu saying, the way is not difficult to attain, just avoid choice and attachment. In our video entitled Zen and the inner flame kindling through friction, I gave you guys a shortcut that I use for Zazan meditation by saying to yourself, I wonder what my next thought will be.
It tricks your brain up into going silent for just a moment, enough time to get a taste of that state of samadhi. I would like to share another little shortcut when it comes to Wu Wei that is equally kind of obvious but easily overlooked. When we are at a crossroads of sorts and don’t know which lane to choose, well, just choose the lane that you are supposed to be in and you know which one it is.
That’s the thing about this. It’s so simple that we block it out with our ego, but it is like driving on the highway. When you need to choose a lane to drive in, you look and see, well, this one looks jammed and this one could be an exit, yada yada. Instead of overthinking it, just get into the lane that is going to take you to your destination and remain there until something changes.
Wu wei mindfulness and so called living in the moment does not at all mean not to plan ahead in life or to not have a strategy. This is what gets people confused. I think we should plan things out in life, but while we are doing so, be in that moment of strategic planning and remain mindful during it. Keeping it simple like this keeps us from stressing out about the future while we are planning it.
This meditative state can come with us wherever we go. I like to call this walking meditation. We don’t leave the stillness of mind on the mat where we sit. We bring that equanimity with us wherever we go. And that vibe is contagious, by the way. If you are level headed in very stressful moments, your vibe will literally, scientifically void out the frantic vibes of others in the room.
People often think that they can avoid empathetically picking up negative energy from others by brick walling themselves from it, like they can build a bubble. But dude, forget about it. Because just like photons and yawns that travels through walls, literally and figuratively. Instead, we should offer ourselves into that dance of chaos and let the Wu wei do its work and trust that it will do so without effort.
Now, this does not apply to drunk people, by the way. When intoxicated, a person is far away in sleep mode and might not even be worth the trouble. I mean, make sure they are safe, but definitely embarrass the out of them. The next day, tell them that they sent a picture of their pubes to their mother in law and watch them go through their phone freaking out. It’s great.
I have fun with it. So I’ll give you a couple quick co ins with no explanation so that this video is at least a little Zen like. Yang Wan asked his attendant to bring him a fan made of rhinoceros horn. When the attendant answered that it was impossible, Yang Wan directed him to quote, then bring me the rhinoceros. Do they have rhinoceroses in China? Is it rhinoceroses? Rhinoceros.
Hyunang saw his monk attempting deep concentration and interrupted, saying, without thinking about good or bad, show me your face. Before your parents were born, this monk came to instant awakening after absorbing this paradox. And again, I can’t help but feel that it is the tone or the delivery of these words that level up students so instantly. It’s a vibe. The monk then asked him, besides this, is there anything else? Are there other secret doctrines? The master replied to him, nothing I’ve said to you is secret.
If you look within, you’ll find all secrets. In another one, a governor challenged Z. Chang about an inaccurate passage in the sutras, claiming it says that there is a poppy seed within Mount Kun Lun and that within that poppy seed is the mountain. And he went on, now I can understand how there could be a poppy seed within the mountain, but it’s nonsense to suggest that a poppy seed could contain a mountain.
Zhang responded, governor, I’ve been told that you’ve read as many as 10,000 books. That’s very likely. The governor proudly stated, where the Zen master replied, but your head is no bigger than a coconut. How could it possibly contain 10,000 books? The governor was speechless, not awakened. But it’s fun to think about that. Maybe he just fainted from hearing that bomb mic drop. A poem by Xiao Tao of the Soto Zen temple has a spot that reads both roots and branches must return to their origin and so do.
Respectful and insulting is a good one and one from the heart sutra long seeking it through others, I was far from reaching it. Now I go by myself. I meet it everywhere. It is just I myself and I am not itself understanding. This way I can be as I am. That one’s, like, paradoxical and makes sense at the same time. There’s definitely a middle path to some of these.
Let’s wrap this bitch up by saying that explaining Zen is like putting legs on a snake. It’s silly at best. So I’ll leave you with one final cohen. There are three people peeling potatoes. The student is not thinking about the potatoes, but instead wondering what it’s all about and why we peel them. The apprentice peels the potatoes and wonders how this act can be applied to better his practice.
The master, however, well, he just peels the potatoes. I see them rise, I see them fall. I see them all. I see them come, I see them go. I see them completely still. I see them dream. I see them so I see them grow close. But when I get there, I’ll still be here. I’m still right. Darkness. Only you’re alone, my dear. But when I answer, we can leave.
Here’s where I’m going. You can go. Yes, dear. But when I get there, I’ll still be here’s. .
