I was reading a comment by /u/OneManGayPrideParade where he mentioned a boat metaphor, and it clicked with this Dogen quote I had recently provided in another thread: 'Though it is "not in east, west, north or south," it is "I come home with a fully empty boat, laden with moonlight."'
The moon represents illuminated mind, and the boat metaphor makes sense for us, like boats going down the river of life. "Fully empty", obviously referring to the emptiness of Buddha-Nature. However, it wasn't the boat part of PrideParade's comment that made me wish to investigate, but rather the mention of fog.
From Essential Chan Buddhism: The Character and Spirit of Chinese Zen by Guo Jun: "Other Buddhist schools say keep walking in the fog. You have faith that eventually you will get to mountain even though you haven't seen it. Eventually you will get there. Chan gives you a sudden glimpse of the shining peak in the moment when the fog clears. Still, you need to keep walking. Still, you have to climb the mountain."
In my looking at fog references in Zen, I came across a great quote from a book, which is what I made this post to highlight, though wanted to offer the string on what led to it.
About a month ago I put up this post about Shinchi Kakushin 心地覺心 (1207–1298) meeting Wumen Huikai 無門慧開. Shinchi, it was noted was of Fuke-Zen, which is Zen that uses music for their aesthetic, specifically flute playing.
What I wanted to share, is this. From World Flutelore: Folktales, Myths, and Other Stories of Magical Flute Power by Dale A. Olsen:
Morihide recorded in a historical document Kyotaku Denki Kokujukai published in 1795 in Japan. The account is a history of the Fuke-shu Buddhist sect, the kumuso Buddhist priests, and an early type of shakuhachi called kyotaku used for Zen meditation. One of the stories is about a young kyotaku player named Kichiku who led a nomadic existence playing kyotaku and begging in the streets in Japan's Kinki region. While praying at Kokuzu-do temple on Mount Asamagatake in Sei-shu province (today Ise province) on the Ise peninsula, he dreamed he was looking at the full moon while adrift and alone in a boat in the ocean; then suddenly, the moon was blocked by a desne fog, and the tones of a flute could be heard.
The music disappeared as the fog increased and returned as the fog slowly went away. Kichiku awoke, but the flute music was still in his mind. He picked up his kyotaku and played the melodies he heard. He went to his master, Gakushin, and related the dream to him. His master said the music was a gift from the Buddha, and he named the supernaturally created compositions "Mukaiji" (Flute in the foggy sea) and "Kokuji" (Flute in the empty sky). Both pieces, even today, are among the most sacred and profound compositions in the Zen shakuhachi repertoire from the Fuke sect. "Mukaiji" and "Kokuji" were created through supernatural revelation rather than human composition, although it could be argued that all great compositions include supernatural revelation. Nevertheless, these pieces and others in the shakuhachi repertoire known as honkyoku ("original pieces") have a profound mystery associated with them. They are in a way programmatic, imitative, and suggestive to the extent that they evoke extramusical phenomena and concepts, such as fog and emptiness, the latter being a major attribute of Zen Buddhism.
Want to listen to these songs?
Submitted July 26, 2017 at 11:26PM by Dillon123 http://ift.tt/2v8uoA9
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