The Buddha-nature of a dog
Upvote:1
I have always found koans to be useful tools for thought. Through study of the dharma, interaction with the sangha and a variety of other means we reach new insights that are much like dull tools. Through their use applied against the situations in various koan we find their true worth. There is no right answer to a grinding wheel.
Upvote:2
People often report this koan with out explaining the surface meaning. Chinese at the time considered dogs nasty dirty animals, that hold the same position as pigs in the western mind. Pigs or c**kroaches or those parasites that burrow into your eyes. So the surface question is can the most contemptible being become enlightened.
The surface meaning of the most common answer, Mu is Buddhist jargon, meaning emptiness, sunyata. In the Mahayana system, you are enlightened when you realize the truth of sunyata, i.e. that you have no self (no atman), everything changes over time and various other things that I don't have space for here.
In my opinion, koan practice is a practice. You think about a question and always are told that your answer is wrong. During this process, many people report flashes of insight where they subjectively feel that they have grasped the answer, i.e. satori or sudden enlightenment. Reasoning takes time, so sudden enlightenment can't be done in step by step reasoning.
In China, there was a huge multiyear (multi decade?) discussion on if enlightenment was a matter of following steps or if it was something that happened to you in a flash. In China and Japan, the sudden enlightenment proponents won.
Some modern critics say that especially in Japan with a new funerary and post mortem outlook, have moved onto a form of Zen where sunyata is a sudden realization that you do have an immortal self, which contradicts early Buddhist thought.
Upvote:8
We should really have a rule on here not to provide koan answers! It's so important that you figure them out for yourself! Written out, the answers become hollow and never approach their true 'meaning'. That said (and no spoilers follow!)...
Mu does mean no, but it also can translate as blankness, voidness, or absence. That should ring a bell regarding the concept of emptiness or shunyata. The koan really doesn't have anything to do with dogs or whether or not they have a Buddha nature. It has more to do with this idea of emptiness - what it is and the initial experience of it. The monk in this koan is all caught up in scholasticism and conceptualism. He's using his small mind to try and understand a concept that it's just not capable of of apprehending. Zhaozhou's answer is an attempt to shake that monk out of his smaller way of thinking and point him instead to mu - the true essence of Zen.
More post
- π Zazen to get an LSD effect?
- π Can you do labeling and tai chi?
- π What is the state,the during vipassana meditation?
- π How important is lineage in Buddhism?
- π Do enlightened people "know" what nirvana is like?
- π What can one do with knowings that occur from strong intuition?
- π Attachment to practice itself
- π Reunion with the loved one after death and in next life
- π Meaning of the Pali-word "sampajanasi"?
- π How to actually do death contemplation?
- π What are Gandhari Charm and Manika Charm told by Buddha?
- π Infinite rebirth, finite kamma?
- π Where does Karma get stored?
- π The purpose of associating with the wise
- π Xin Ling Fa Men εΏη΅ζ³ι¨ - New "Buddhism"?
- π What does Buddhism say about success?
- π Why is Vipassana centred around the breath, when it's meant to be a state of observing sensations?
- π Soul that splits in seven parts
- π Unintentional karma and its effect
- π If a monk sees a pin in his path, will he step on it and accept pain?
- π Stages of the Bardo
- π Asking questions a "childish" way to learn, to teach?
- π Important literature on Zen Buddhism before the year 1900
- π What are Ekabiji?
- π Can meditation be harmful?
- π How to cure music influence on mind?
- π How to understand a second order Karma?
- π How accurate is AN 9.20 β VelΔma Sutta?
- π Varieties of emptiness
- π Are Teachings developed "after the fact"?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- π If Buddha is able to predict the future of other sentient beings how can freewill be possible as its very nature is that of unpredictability?
- π In what ways are the Advaita concept of 'Nirguna Brahman' and the Buddhist concept of Buddha Nature similar and different?
- π Is Buddha Nature the original state, i.e. Awareness/ Consciousness without Existence?
- π Is Buddha nature everywhere the same?
- π Is the Buddha nature nothingness or the Dharmakaya?
- π Can the Buddha ever be a woman?
- π Where is the Buddha quoted as saying do not believe anything I say until you can prove it by yourself?
- π How do you tell a 4-year-old who the Buddha was?
- π Was Vipassana discovered by the Buddha (Siddhartha)?
- π Why did the Buddha suffer before he died?
- π Why does the Buddha call himself the TathΔgata?
- π How was the Buddha Jayanti edition of the Tripitaka derived?
- π Did the Buddha speak Pali? Are the suttas his word verbatim?
- π Attachment is a poison. Why is attachment to the Buddha and to Buddhist philosophy not a problem?
- π What language did the Buddha speak?
- π Ignorant mind and Buddha nature
- π Meditation technique proposed by the Buddha
- π Was the Buddha harsh?
- π Why the Buddha didn't originally allow ordination of women
- π Words of the Buddha
- π Did the Buddha really say that "life is suffering"?
- π Why is the Buddha described as trackless?
- π Are there examples of the Buddha showing humour in the Pali Canon?
- π Why does the Buddha always answer a question if asked three times?
- π If there is no soul or self, why did the Buddha speak of his past lives?
- π Did the Buddha ever delve on the dangers of one's own spirtual achievements feeding the ego?
- π Where is the Buddha originally quoted as saying "On heaven and earth, I alone am honored"?
- π Is it harmful to the Buddha when we request he or she to continue teaching instead of entering parinirvana?
- π What is taught about Buddha nature in Theravada Buddhism?
- π Why do Buddhists believe that the Buddha was enlightened, despite that he claimed it himself?