Merle,
It's one's practice of a koan that enables it to open and reveal what it treats
of. That revelation comes from your nature, not the koan's. And it's you who
opens, not the koan. The koan can do nothing without your practice.
The marrow of Zen is not conveyed by reading. The text is simply medicine.
With the restoration of your own health comes awakening, not before.
There is no understanding of Zen, in fact.
In Zen, we speak of one's "understanding", and what is meant is one's
realization, one's awakening.
"Understanding" in Zen is not an intellectual appreciation that one holds, nor
a poetic metaphor that one holds.
Expressions of Zen, or expressions of one's realization do not always come
through words. There are other ways: painting, martial arts, cooking, archery,
poetry, gardening, arranging flowers, making tea, drinking tea, washing,
cleaning, brushing the teeth, driving a car, etc.
Koan practice is a medical treatment of oneself carried out by oneself in
consultation with a Specialist, a Zen teacher. Otherwise,
without the specialist at hand, it is Quackery.
--Joe
> Merle Lester <merlewiitpom@...> wrote:
>
> joe..my understanding of zen was it reached to the bone of the matter...merle
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