"Hey! The kettle is scorched!"

A nun asked: "Master, will you teach me the truth that has never been spoken?"

Joshu rebuked her: "Hey! The kettle is scorched!"

The nun added water to the kettle and said, "Master, please answer."

Joshu laughed.

• Radical Zen, tr. Yoel Hoffman

---

I've seen it mentioned that this is an imperfect translation, but I suspect the story is straightforward enough that the heart of the thing is preserved.

It strikes me often that the contents of monastic life in 9th century China are very different from the contents of my own daily life.

I like this passage, because "the kettle is scorched" carries (for me) a valence of urgency and responsibility. "The tree in the yard" is unaccompanied by frenzy, there is no feeling of "next step" in that experience. I see "the tree in the yard," and a tree is not a tree is a tree, and there is nobody who is seeing. How nice to just sit around eating these lotuses, forget Greece!

But there is more conditioning to "the kettle is scorched" (or maybe the conditioning is just different). To "Sallie Mae called 3 times today and I can't pay them right now," to "is that a police car or just a white Impala because my headlight is definitely out," to "5 people shot in 4 hours on Christmas Day."

---

I asked: "Master, will you teach me the truth that has never been spoken?"

Sallie Mae rebuked me: "Sallie Mae called three times today and there is no money!"

I added water to the kettle and said, "Master, please answer."

Sallie Mae laughed.

---

Why do monastics withdraw from society to study Zen? And OK, there is no society, there is no withdraw, there is no monastic, there is no study. But, per Foyan, "if [an incense stand] is not an incense stand, to whom was the incense stand given away?" If I don't investigate the shape of the thing I'm letting go of, I'm liable to tangle myself up in it later on.

I'm not a monastic, so I need to be sure I'm applying any lessons learned from dialogues between monastics to the specifics of my layperson's life.

To mix my metaphors even more thoroughly: If the kettle is scorching, and I leave it to look at the tree in the yard, I'd better be careful nobody chops my finger off.

I'm interested in how others approach this tension, and in why they think Zen masters tended to instruct people who didn't have much else going on.

Submitted December 29, 2019 at 03:02AM by in_dee_nile https://ift.tt/2MCNIgl