Zen Master Yunmen

Zen Master Yunmen #151 The Master once said, "True emptiness does not destroy being, and true emptiness does not differ from form."

Then a monk asked, "What is true emptiness?"

The Master answered, "Do you hear the sound of the bell?"

The monk replied, "That's the sound of the bell."

The Master cried, "Will you see it in a dream in the year of the donkey?"

This is a lovely short talk on emptiness and how to experience it. The master points out that after the exoerience of emptiness, being and form persist. In fact form is emptiness as stated in the Heart. His comment also addresses the mistaken idea that form disappears in the presence of the void.

He then attempts to get the monk to actually experience emptiness by listening to a bell. The sound of a bell is empty. We cannot hold it in our hands, it has no form, size etc. Being enlightened the master also knows the bell is mind and not separate from it, and for that reason it is a good way to point out mind which is empty. The student doesn't get the clues and the master appears to dismiss him with a comment.

This koan is much like the Zen student who asks a master what enlightenment is and the master replies the entrance to it is the sound of a stream, or words to that affect.

Submitted March 03, 2023 at 07:29AM by Ok_Understanding_188 https://ift.tt/YwjkPiz