For those of us who entered the doorway of Zen through “just sitting,” koan practice has always seemed a bit mysterious. Not that there isn’t a technique involved in sitting meditation but concentrating on a certain phrase or word is not part of that approach.

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Many of us have longed at one time or another to retreat to a hermitage in the mountain wilds, to follow the way of the sages, thus shedding our distractions and focusing on a life of practice.

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Once again, the classic student and teacher dialogue we have all heard at one time or another. True teachers can be and should be, difficult to pin down an “answer” to questions that in reality wind up limiting us. What else, and how else could Huang Po answer?

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The essence of Taoism and Zen emanates from the same source, and many qualities of Taoist sages sound like what you could hear from a Zen master in China. At times the dividing lines seem quite blurry.

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One of the core teachings in Buddhism is that of “co-dependent origination,” that nothing exists independently; rather, everything exists on the condition that its existence relies on all other entities.

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Here is a refreshing and direct expression of something many of us make into a very complicated and abstruse issue. Bankei brought Zen to ordinary, everyday people along with the monks and nuns that he taught. 

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Ah, the patience of a good teacher resounds throughout this piece. The characters and their parts are timeless...we have all known challenging students who seem to push inappropriately, but like a highly skilled kendo master, Muso deftly answers questions that seem at times to cross the barrier of common courtesy. 

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Zen teaching is filled with enlightenment stories and koans that sound like mental gymnastics to the beginner. At times one wonders the purpose of them, other than to illustrate how futile all our striving really is.

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There are many principles of Buddhism easily understood. For instance, any one of the Six Perfections sounds like reasonable aspirations. However, as in all spiritual traditions, there is the understanding of the householder versus the spiritual aspirant who hears another meaning.

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Over the years we have shared many teaching dialogues, most often in the format of an unknown student questioning a very well know Zen Master. This is one of the most unique dialogues we have, taken from Dogen’s own journal covering his years of study in China with Master Rujing.

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