Mike, I replied to this in an email to you. I thought you'd sent me a private email. Here is my public reply which is the same as my email to you minus the last paragraph...
You do need to live and interact in the world of illusions if you wish to cross the road safely and accept responsibilities. I do that all the time. I don't ignore these illusions, but I try not to become attach to them which is exactly what I think you risk when you call them or think of them as `real' or not illusory. Read HYAKUJO AND THE FOX again. In the first half of the koan (which IMO is not the important half but is just setting up the ending) Hyakujo's answer that freed the elder Hyakujo from living in the body of a fox for 500 lifetimes. He did not affirm that a "perfectly enlightened being" falls under the law of cause-and-effect. He said "The law of cause-and-effect cannot be obscured." At least that's what the translation is in the GATELESS GATE translated by Koun Yamada that I have, and that is the wording that was used when I was given the koan during my koan study. To me that means the illusion of cause-and-effect cannot be ignored IF you want to live compatibly in the world of illusion. It doesn't mean it's real and does apply to a "perfectly enlightened being" who may or may not care to live in the world of illusion . The real meat of the koan however is later when Obaku asked Hyakujo with words to the effect: `The old man answered incorrectly and was cast into the body of a fox. What if the old man had answered correctly? What then?" If you break down this koan logically, rationally, the `wrong' answer was the cause of being cast into the body of a fox which was the effect. The hearing of the turning word was the cause of his being released from the body of the fox which was the breaking of the previous relationship of cause-and-effect, or you could also think of it as a new effect. Obaku was asking what if there was no cause in the first place? Could there be an effect without a cause? What then? Bill! --- In [email protected], uerusuboyo@... wrote: > > <br/><br/><br/>Sent from Yahoo! Mail for iPhone > ------------------------------------ Current Book Discussion: any Zen book that you recently have read or are reading! Talk about it today!Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Zen_Forum/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
