![]() ![]() If we want to get to know someone or something intimately we need to encounter it directly. It’s like any relationship: if you keep creating too many questions (and answers) about the person and the relationship in your own mind, the actual relationship gets covered up and the real person is pushed aside. ![]() They will just create new platforms that we hang on to. When we have made the decision to pick up Mu, calling out Mu, and listening to Mu, there’s no use getting entangled in questions “about” Mu. Mumon’s verse for this koan in our version of the Mumonkan goes:ĭog, Buddha nature-the full presentation of the whole with a bit of “has” or “has not,” body is lost, life is lost. That it is a dog is not important it could be a crow, a worm, a cow, a tick, or anything else. Its power comes from your engagement in this very moment. In another version of the koan Joshu answered “Yes” instead of “No.” Zen teachers say that Joshu’s answer, be it no or yes or neither-yes-nor-no or both-yes-and-no, is “a direct presentation.” The great power of this small syllable comes from this alive directness. Mumon, the master who compiled the Mumonkan, once wrote the following verse: In the everyday use of the word Mu in Japanese, it means “does not have” or simply “not” or “no.” But if Mu is a secret, it is an open secret. This is a Latin word that means something like “secret of secrets” or a secret remedy. The late Robert Aitken-roshi calls Mu an arcanum. “Unknowing space” becomes visible and you experience a great freedom, because even though things, feelings, thoughts, and everything else comes and goes as usual, your experience now shows that the unhindered, unknowing space is always present. When Mu becomes fully yours there’s no division between the one that calls and the one that answers: you call Mu and Mu calls you. It is something else entirely: the mind that cuts through and swallows up both knowing and not-knowing. Does a dog have that nature? How could it not have that nature if it is unhindered and always present? Unknowing here doesn’t mean the opposite of common knowledge, intellectual or scientific knowledge. It is the unhindered true nature of life itself, being itself, which becomes naturally obvious to us when we let go of knowing and not-knowing and enter the mind of unknowing. So what is this “Buddha-nature” that a dog might or might not have? It is an expression for the awake nature that is free from misconceptions about a separate self, the always-present mind that we awaken to when we let go of the notion of a solid and separate self. In “Joshu’s Mu,” as in so many koans used in Zen practice, there’s a dialogue between a less experienced Zen practitioner and a more experienced Zen practitioner. According to some scholars, the first story about a dog and Buddha-nature appears in China over 1000 years ago. The word koan means “precedential court case.” Koans are stories that are often built on dialogues and when they are used in zazen the person who practices with koans often works with the commentaries and verses that accompany them. Mu turns up as the first case in a koan collection called the Mumonkan in Japanese and The Gateless Barrier in English. After some time, the shape of that sound becomes more penetrating, like one clear syllable echoing from within infinity.Ī student asked Joshu, “Does the dog have Buddha-nature or not?” Joshu answered: “Mu.” ![]() We keep listening after the sound and we ask: What is it? And with that question we fully turn our attention to it and we realize that it is not just coming from a space within but actually from everywhere: it is in the depths and heights of oceans and the skies. In the midst of that space we notice a faint sound, but at first we cannot hear it clearly. We sit down on our platform and after some initial struggle, the breathing becomes the main focus and we sense a space within and in between the inhalation and exhalation. If we ask a Zen instructor for advice, we are told to just sit still and listen to our breath instead of all the stories. But some of us will at some point feel a deep need to listen to something other than the voices that try to convince us about the immutable Me-ness of that platform. But it often feels quite unsteady, as if the winds of the world shake it, so we hold on to stories that are meant to strengthen and solidify it. Continuously, we tell stories and visualize scenarios to make it feel more solid, safe, and known. We are living on a platform that has been artfully shaped by our own narrative. Koan commentary by Kanja Roshi On the stark beauty of Mu ![]()
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