Have you guys ever heard the saying that, if Shakespeare had wanted to kill any more people in Titus Andronicus, he would have had to start killing the first row of spectators? Titus Andronicus was his first play. Wait'll you see what my parrot is going to do to you in her first play! It's gonna be a blood bath using holy water up in these parts, I’m telling you what monkeroos, you damned sewing circle of total vamps with ire thrown in for good show—just you watch.
(Oh, also: Welcome to Cervantes's Midsummer Evening Dream-Preparation Ceremony: a private bath conducted just before she retires on June 18th.)
But on to the case:
Joshu 385
Joshu was reading the Diamond Sutra when a monk asked, "It is said that all the various Buddhas, all the wisdom of the Buddhas, everything derives from this sutra. What is this sutra?"
Joshu said, "Kongohanyaharamitakyo. 'I have heard that Buddha was once in the country of Shaei...''"
The monk said, "That's not it."
Joshu said, "I cannot possibly revise the sutra of my own accord."
Now, in my video, I had the case but forgot the sentence at the end was "revise". I believe several of you have already seen a recent post I made on this case—so maybe you are familiar with my take on Joshu's response. Another fun thing to point at is that Joshu is also responding as if the monk asked him to do the work of reading it for the monk...so he was just obliging. Then Joshu acts as if the monk has asked him to commit a crime against the contents of the text—which the monk.of course had. If you ask about the Diamond Sutra, the response is the Diamond Sutra.
It is a funny and charming case in every way, really—and Joshu is such a fun person that you see in his cases. I've never met anyone who'e confused about why Joshu has been so widely quoted, by so many, for so long, from his very own time right until now.
Here's a fun point though: not a lot of people in r/zen actually know how the Diamond Sutra worked as a very functional piece of Mahayana literature—but never fear: my fearless parrot is here to show you the Way.
She got wind of that lady Godiva, right? And she thought to herself: "Cervantes, ya know what? If you're willing to go even further than that old nag with the naked lady ornament, you can help show a bunch of damn nerds how Mahayana literature works—becaise they'll be so riveted watching Linseed simulate Marian spying on Guanyin taking a bath in bookreporter blood, using a parrot as his only prop—that they'll positively refuse not to laugh!
Here she is, your totally naked lady-parrot, doing the craziest thing she could possibly do on TV: letting a bunch of Ch'an students see what she looks like when she’s wet.
(She’s hoping her daring act of self-revealing compassion will inspire a lifting of the local repartee: out of the gutter, and back into the garden hammock where it belongs.)
How’d it feel folks? Staffs, dogs, parrots, dairy…what more could you want, really?.
Does anyone realize how nice the Platform Sutra is to mention that Huineng was enlightened by hearing lines of the Diamond Sutra being recited out loud? Do you folks who do all your reading on a computer realize how easily comprehensible this is to people who do their reading in front of a fire, whether as familiied or hermits or couples living in tiny shacks through kong winters? Herman Melville’s family read David Copperfield aloud in the evenings the winter he wrote Moby Dick. I would act out Shakespeare plays with all the dialogue for my dogs and parrots. (Have any idea how much pets come to like you when you flirt with them like Cleopatra, and die on the floor like Lady Macbeth? Hahaha—you folks have no idea!)
Anyway it is easy to see how the Diamond Sutra (a piece of Mahayana literature) was used and why it worked if you are familiar with reading aloud. If they recited it aloud back in different times, when they probably often didn’t even have any other books, and maybe not even their own copy of the Diamond Sutra—anyway it should be no surprise the Sutra looks like it does or that Ch’an Masters and Monks talk about it and write about it like they do.
But the spoken / recited aloud thing is interesting, anyway.
Now here is for the REALLY funny part.
(Now as I write this is it is Midsummer Vespers…10 pm but the sun is still high enough that the sky remains blue and the bottom of the clouds golden.)
So let’s see what Zen Master Joshu had to say about the Lotus Sutra, shall we?
(Btw—ya’ll see that r/askhistorians thread about Ch’an and Buddhism? The top voted response? That made me think of the second case.)
Joshu #395
Joshu asked a monk, "Have you read the Lotus Sutra?"
The monk said, "I have."
Joshu said, "In this sutra it says, 'They wear a monk's robe, live in a secluded place, and call it the place of practice. Thus they deceive the people.' What do you understand this to mean?"
The monk was about to bow when Joshu said, "Have you come here wearing a monk's robe?"
The monk said, "I have."
Joshu said, "Don't deceive me."
The monk said, "How can I avoid deceiving you?"
Joshu said, "Live your own way. Don't accept my word."
Wouldja look at that? The same thing the corporate temples say about students of Ch’an today!
As well as some of the nerds in here like to say about hermits who study Ch’an: “Yeah, watch out! They look just like people who study Ch’an—it’s highly deceptive!”
Joshu just walks the monk through it, shows him how to understand what it means, and gives him the answer.
But super shady of the Lotus to prep its readers with trepidation like that—just ensures that if they ever meet a real Ch’an Master it’s going to be ten times funnier.
But I never try to scare anyone about Lotus Eaters. i just laugh and point out that “technically tobacco is a plant the medicine king bodhisattva is familiar with the use of!”
::lights a fuse with cigar:: 🏴☠️
—Golden Eyebrow
Year of the Tiger
Submitted June 19, 2022 at 12:50PM by BlindYellowSage https://ift.tt/y1drBfS
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