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**sandyphoebetvmaa** · 02-22-2011, 10:31 PM

Shoju shouldn't have done that should he? I mean burning a valuable book of that kind in which his master had made notes? Or perhaps it never really happened in the first place and it's just another Zen koan which will forever embed itself in my mind, torturing me with its play of opposites... never to be resolved.

Every time I read this story I have that same feeling about never throwing away a book; I love and appreciate books. But the context given at the beginning of the story leads, at least for me, to another lecture of it. Zen encourages a direct realization, a direct understanding, almost a kind of silent knowledge. It is important to read carfully one of the lines of reasoning Shoju is giving when he tells his master that IF he founds so valuable HIS book then it is good to keep it anytime Shoju has realized the path and there is no need for such a book also for the transmission of Dhamma. This points to certain level of understanding and recalls about attachments to traditions, gurus, and the like. It is not about burning books as some dictators have done in history of humankind.

just another Zen koan which will forever embed itself in my mind, torturing me with its play of opposites... never to be resolved.

I am not too eager about koans. I don't like them too much. I prefere to sit. But koans are that. They lead to understand the torture of being caught in the play of opposites as we are, [unconsciously?],in day to day life and to become mindful and to still our mind so mindfulness will arise by itself. People highly intellectual gets easily caught into the koan and experiences mind torture. So through them you start loosening your mind and letting go that chattering tendency of argumentation. They are not about emptiness but stillness of mind. Zazen and shikantaza, from Soto Zen, are about the same thing.

02-22-2011, 10:31 PM	#16
sandyphoebetvmaa Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 599 Senior Member	Shoju shouldn't have done that should he? I mean burning a valuable book of that kind in which his master had made notes? Or perhaps it never really happened in the first place and it's just another Zen koan which will forever embed itself in my mind, torturing me with its play of opposites... never to be resolved. Every time I read this story I have that same feeling about never throwing away a book; I love and appreciate books. But the context given at the beginning of the story leads, at least for me, to another lecture of it. Zen encourages a direct realization, a direct understanding, almost a kind of silent knowledge. It is important to read carfully one of the lines of reasoning Shoju is giving when he tells his master that IF he founds so valuable HIS book then it is good to keep it anytime Shoju has realized the path and there is no need for such a book also for the transmission of Dhamma. This points to certain level of understanding and recalls about attachments to traditions, gurus, and the like. It is not about burning books as some dictators have done in history of humankind. just another Zen koan which will forever embed itself in my mind, torturing me with its play of opposites... never to be resolved. I am not too eager about koans. I don't like them too much. I prefere to sit. But koans are that. They lead to understand the torture of being caught in the play of opposites as we are, [unconsciously?],in day to day life and to become mindful and to still our mind so mindfulness will arise by itself. People highly intellectual gets easily caught into the koan and experiences mind torture. So through them you start loosening your mind and letting go that chattering tendency of argumentation. They are not about emptiness but stillness of mind. Zazen and shikantaza, from Soto Zen, are about the same thing.
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