Weekly Measuring Tap: Case 2

So the point of this series is to discuss one case from The Measuring Tap each week (credit to Astroemi for the idea). Given how long these cases can get I'm only going to post the main case. The idea is if you have access to a copy of the book we all read the full case and commentary each week and talk about it. It's available on Amazon and Terebess.

You can talk as little or as much as you like. Want to write a dissertation on the whole thing? Go ahead. One line stuck out to you and you want to comment on it? Fair game. Did the case remind you of another case? Tell us about it! Feel free to chime in all week as things occur to you.

Just stay on topic please. The topic being the case of the week.

I'm starting with Case 2 since we had a discussion about case 1 already last week, kind of. Here's the main case:

2.  Xuefeng at Work

One day during work Xuefeng himself was carrying a bundle of wisteria  (Laboring without pride in accomplishment.)  when he encountered a monk on the path.  Xuefeng immediately put down the bundle.  (Strength exhausted, spirit wearied.)  Just as the monk made to pick it up, Xuefeng pushed him over with his foot.  (If you don’t run downhill it’ll be hard to catch up.)  When he got back, he told Changsheng about this and said, “Today I stomped that monk quickly.”  (Don’t brag so much.)  Changsheng said, “Master, you’ll have to go to the infirmary instead of this monk.”  (Look for one or a half in a bustling city.)  Xuefeng stopped right away.

Xuedou cited this and said, “Changsheng is a lot like someone from the house to the west joining in the mourning when someone in the house to the east has died. He should be given a stomp.”  (You too have to focus in a hurry in order to get it.)

There was one line I found curious:

In those days they all worked every day, hauling water and firewood. How could they be like the brethren of the present who sit still and eat to their fill with no sense of shame?

At first I was tempted to take this literally. As in maybe in Xuefeng's time his congregation didn't have a lot of wealthy donors so they needed to work more to survive, and that Yuanwu's audience had wealthy donors and didn't need to.

But then I thought about how he mentions the lazy ones "sit still", which suggests to me he meant Xuefeng's students spent their time doing "the work" of Zen while students in Yuanwu's time were enamored with meditation and therefore were not doing "the work".

Or maybe he meant both?

Submitted March 12, 2023 at 07:10PM by koancomentator https://ift.tt/NLwJmdY