Sometimes I come up with my own 公案, a philosophical dialogue or question to contemplate.
This is a recent one:
Master: The Buddha is not confined to his skin. He is everywhere. So if you only see the Buddha as someone in a physical body, you are wrong. The Buddha is present in the entire universe.
Student: Dear Master, why do you say the Buddha is everywhere in the universe? I can't see how the Buddha can be found in the farthest star or at a time before the Buddha Shakyamuni.
Master: What Buddha?
This came to me after I listened to a Dharma talk from Thich Nhat Hanh on "there is action but no actor".
Whenever we wonder "who" is doing "what", "when" and "where", we are caught in the wrong perceptions and are blinded by wrong questions. It's like asking "where is the parallel universe?" That's a false question because space and location are in the universe, not the universe is in the space.
And this also came to me after I read the quote: "a pig sees everything as a pig." I found it so insightful because humans try everything to find out reasons and rules of the world and apply "purposes" to the nature. But that is a result of looking at the universe with our own narrow, humanistic views. The world is not obliged to make sense for humans and yet we need the world to be like a human and cannot accept the ideas that there may be no rules for the world and no meanings for lives.
Think about this, when we say "this species has evolved to be this so as to have more chances to produce the next generations." It sounds as if we think the species is a single entity and is conscious about its will to expand its population. It's pure anthropomorphism.
All the notions are only subject to human minds. "Here, there, reason, meaning, being, non-being", are all beyond question at the ultimate level. After all, if there are no minds, who would ask these questions?
Another related 公案 on my mind recently is the 公案 of a goose in a bottle.
"A woman raised a goose in a bottle. When the goose had grown, she wanted to get it out without harming the goose, or breaking the bottle. How do you get the goose out of the bottle?"The story continues as the Zen Master called the woman's name, and the woman responded. Then the Master said: problem solved.
We create so many questions and problems with our minds and impose human perspectives to everything in the world, demanding them to be like this or that.
If only we could let go of these views and notions, we could immediately enjoy the openness and wonder of the universe.
# Jill Yang
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