Please tell me your opinions on this Case

I enjoy r/zen a lot when guards are lowered and vagueries dropped. Admittedly, not all vagueries are an act, some are brilliant, and there are some inspiring regulars I've come to enjoy around here. (LS, LS, WG, IANTU - looking at you all).

Anyway, in the spirit of lowering my guard, and inspired by u/embersxinandyi and their recent koan interp request; here's one of my own. Don't go easy, show me yourSelf. My comments are in non-italics.

Ching Ch'ing and the Raindrops - (new band name?).

Ching Ch'ing asked a monk, "What sound is that outside the gate?"

Laying the trap. Will the monk venture away from himself? Also 'outside the gate' made me smile. Basically 'outside yourself' : but good luck defining that.

The monk said, "The sound of raindrops."

He's not wrong, but if that's all he knows of the sound then he's in trouble.

Ch'ing said, "Sentient beings are inverted. They lose themselves and follow after things."

Ch'ing reckons he's indeed in trouble. If that's inverted, what is the correct way around? Keep yourself and have things follow after you?

The monk said, "What about you, Teacher?"

Solid move. Give his mess back to him.

Ch'ing said, "I almost don't lose myself.

He seems not to claim permanent clarity. So he loses himself a bit? Takes a walk on the wild side every now and again?

The monk said, "What is the meaning of 'I almost don't lose myself'?"

Ch'ing said, "Though it still should be easy to express oneself, to say the whole thing has to be difficult."

• BCR 46th Case

The monk presses on the issue of the master almost not losing himself (and so losing himself a bit, presumably) but this brings up the complex issue of using language to describe the self that can be partly lost vs the self which is unaffected by the whole thing - if there is such an unaffected one.

Is it that the immediate principle of awareness is lost from time to time, but the self which is deep in the mountains when no-one is around is not lost? Is that what the master is having trouble putting across?

Answers, questions and probing all graciously invited!

Submitted May 06, 2020 at 06:24AM by PlayOnDemand https://ift.tt/2WK6jeH