The Iron Flute

About a week ago, I finished Nyogen Senzaki's The Iron Flute. It is a collection of 100 Zen koans, with commentary, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in either Taoism or Zen. Back in the archives, I've posted many of my favorites, so I won't post any here.

Each koan has commentary with it, and the commentary is iself a koan in most cases. However, my favorite part of the commentary is that it has been built onto over the years. Genro, Fugai and Nyogen have all added comments (Nyogen's being the most recent), and they weave together like a conversation, or sometimes an argument, clarifiying and confusing all at the same time. There are cases where the commentary opened my eyes to a meaning I hadn't seen before, and other cases where I thought I understood until I read the commentary.

One final thought. This is not a book to sit down and read all at once. Perhaps some people would get something out of it that way, but I sure wouldn't. I read this book slowly. First I tried one koan a day, then I decided that wasn't enough. I would read a koan one day, and reread it the next. Sometimes I would reread it the third day as well, but usually I moved on. So I've been working on this book since last August. It was well-worth it, and I'm sure I'll come back and reread them all again at some point.

Books

In 1934, Krishnamurtie said, "Why do you want to be students of books instead of students of life? Find out what is true and false in your environment with all its oppressions and its cruelties, and then you will find out what is true." Repeatedly he pointed out that the "book of life," which is ever changing with a vitality that cannot be held in thought, was the only one worth "reading," all others being filled with secondhand information. "The story of mankind is in you, the vast experience, the deep-rooted fears, anxieties, sorrow, pleasure and all the beliefs that man has accumulated throughout the millennia. You are that book."
...
"Truth cannot be accumulated. What is accumulated is always being destroyed; it withers away. Truth can never wither because it can only be found from moment to moment in every thought, in every relationship, in every word, in every gesture, in a smile, in tears."

—from the introduction to The Book of Life by Krishnamurti

I'm sure Krishnamurti appreciated the irony of being a writer of books... :-) However insightful, however erudite, the words of another belong to another. Only your own experiences belong to you. Words may point you in a useful direction, or give you some idea what is possible, but the next step is always yours.

I like Krishnamurti's take on truth. It is not Absolute Truth that is frozen in a rictus of death; it is Living Truth. It stays the same by constantly changing, in each and every moment. "Nothing is trivial," as Brandon Lee's character said in The Crow. All the little things together form the truth in each moment, and in so doing are no longer little.

From the Chuang Tzu

The way has reality and truth; it has no construction or form. It can be given but not taken; it can be attained but not seen. It is based on itself, rooted in itself; it has always been there, even before the existence of heaven and earth. It spiritualizes ghosts and gods, gives birth to heaven and earth. It is ahead of the absolute pole, without being high; it is beyond all limits without being deep. It was born before the universe and yet is not ancient; it is senior to antiquity, and yet is not old.
...
"What kills the living does not die; what gives birth to the living is not born. What it is brings on everything and sends off everything, breaks everything down and makes everything. Its name is peace from agitation. Peace from agitation is attained only after agitation."

—from The Essential Tao, trans. Thomas Cleary

The "absolute pole" most likely refers to the North Star, which seems to stay fixed while all other stars rotate around it. It is considered best to emulate that star, to attain a place where you do nothing and yet everything is done. The Way cannot be old, since it is newborn in each and every moment. It cannot be young, since it has always existed. In other words, labels are useless. :-)

For the second paragraph, consider this Zen koan: "What is your original face before you were born?"

Gods?

On Pharyngula, I just ran across this quote from Richard Dawkins: "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in." I've come across similar claims on other atheist blogs recently, and I find that "all" is inaccurate. I know of at least one exception: me.

First, I don't find the concept of "gods" all that useful. It is certainly true that they exist in the mind, i.e. in the same sense that Middle Earth and Hogwart's exist. For me, that is enough to grant them at least some reality. Any particular god has exactly as much power over a person as that person grants in his/her mind. That is, gods are subjective phenomena: their attributes vary depending on the person perceiving them. Any god held to have specific characteristics falls into this "subjective" category for me. Is such a god useful? I would answer that it depends on the person doing the believing.

The Tao is different. It embodies all characteristics, and none. I would also include the Sufi experience of God in the non-characteristic category based on my admittedly brief readings of Sufi texts. Likewise, I would include the direct experience of the Divine reported by mystics of all sorts. But as soon as you start trying to label and define any god, you have limited it, separated it. It is no longer the Ultimate, but a subset thereof.

New Year, New Calendar

Well, I didn't get another Daily Zen calendar this year. This one is called "Wisdom of the East." I'd had the Daily Zen calendar two years in a row, and there were quite a few repeats so I tried something new. The saying above seems nicely applicable. Now, if I only knew where those symbols came from. ;-)

ADDENDUM:
Found an online Symbol Dictionary, but so far I've only found one of the symbols. Ah well.

The symbol in the top left, that looks like the Greek letter psi with two lines through the stem, stands for magentism or magnesium.

The background for the one in the top right might be a variation of a sun-symbol (four points enclosed in a circle), but I haven't found it exactly.