Kyogen's Man Up A Tree: questions

Kyogen’s Man-Up-a-Tree
Kyogen said, “Its like a man (a monk) up in a tree, hanging from a branch with his mouth; his hands can’t grasp a bough, his feet won’t reach one. Under the tree there is another man, who asks him the meaning of Daruma’s coming from the west. If he doesn’t answer, he evades his duty. If he answers , he will lose his life. What should he do?

The Commentary:
Though your eloquence flows like a river, it is all of no avail. Even if you can explain the whole body of the Buddhist sutras, that is also useless. If you can answer the problem properly, you can kill the living, bring the dead back to life. But if you can’t answer, you must ask Maitreya when he comes.

The Verse:
Kyogen really has bad taste,
And spreads poison limitlessly.
He stops up the monks mouth,
And frantically they squeeze tears out from there dead eyes.

From the Blythe translation of the Mumonkan

Why is the verse telling me Kyogen has bad taste, spreads poison, stops mouths, makes them cry and kills them? What does Mumon hope to accomplish by telling me these things? They appear critical. Are they?

If I had to answer the question at the end of the story, I'd say "the monk should consider the actions that led him to this position and hope to avoid them in the future."

Submitted January 06, 2020 at 11:42AM by Porn_Steal https://ift.tt/36sbF1r