With focus on the reed, I'm curious about everyone's perspective on the tale of Bodhidharma fleeing the Chinese emperor and crossing the Yangtze river on a reed.
There are so many ways one can interpret this. I'm wondering if there's a cultural element that is lost on a modern westerner like myself. Does the reed symbolize something particular in regard to Zen, Chinese or Daoist philosophy and/or mythology, or perhaps even Confucianism?
Is there only an archetypal symbol here where many spiritual and/or philosophical texts describe the turbulence of monkey mind as waves and water, hence Bodhidharma's Chan/Zen transcends monkey mind, and the reed is only a teaching of expedient means, since reeds are common on the side of bodies of water?
Would love to hear what you think.
Thank you.
Submitted January 23, 2018 at 08:39PM by cosmiclo7us http://ift.tt/2DsQjCW
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