Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

My aunt gave me a copy of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones for Christmas. I like it. To my surprise I feel like sharing some of my reflections. I think I am happily getting swept along in the current of open communication, transparency and partnership of our new Administration. I hope they help. How wonderful it would be for our Sangha if, feeling so moved, others would blog about their reading of the Cup of Tea story or any other Zen Story that moves them.
A cup of Tea
Nan-in a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire abot Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He pured the visitor's cup full and kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!
"Like this cup", Nan-in said, You are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"


I imagine the professor had been ushered into Nan-in's study. Surrounded by books leather, and easy chairs he probably felt a sense of familiarity, comfort and security. It seems to have taken off the edge of encountering the Boundless Body of Nan-in. Here was this sixteen foot Buddha before him and he's going on about the Zen books he's read, perhaps even taught.
Surely he had come with burning existential questions. They had simply been covered up with the familiar clank of his mental armor. Sound familiar? One doesn't have to be a professor to nod yes---been there, done that.
Years of being burned alive in the dokusan room have made it clear to me that meeting with a Zen teacher is not a fact finding mission. Neither is it an encounter that confirms one a place in the the pantheon of those who' really know what is going on'. All she cares about is our freedom, our warmheartedness, our clarity.
Clearly Nan-in saw both the deep questions and the armor. He deftly reached in to contact the soft underbelly; that fertile ground of all our true questions. And what a dramatic contact it was. A teacher will use what ever is at hand to wake us up. Imagine that hot tea splashing all over your lap: the immediacy of that, the audacity of that, the exposure of that, the pain of that.
You cry out, "Stop that 's too much." Mercifully, your soggy lap has started to teach. I am sure Nan-in had a big grin on his face watching the bands of restraint disintergrate in the heat of that wet moment.
Through that opening he placed his hand into the hand of the Person of No Knowledge and gave a good scolding or perhaps scalding to the one who knows.
I wonder how the professor responded. If he was lucky there were tears of tea rolling down his cheeks. If not there is always another cup of tea.
I sure feel the trace of my tears. And, if the the day should come may I have the wisdom, compassion and courage to keep pouring the tea.


tip the cup
into the potted plant
sip it slowly
gulp it down
smash it
place it on the shelf
offer it to a friend

the teaching of the tea leaves
never grows cold


In Peace and Possibility,
Do'on