February 2022
Dear Friends,
How are you? How have you been holding up after two years of pandemic life?
I suspect most of us might readily rank our experience of the last two years in one way or another. For example, someone might categorize it in this way: at the beginning, I was almost happy to hole up and be a hermit for a while, but it’s been downhill ever since.
This ranking, or comparing of this to that, me to you, now to then, is something we humans are prone to doing quite a lot. Often without realizing it, we position others and ourselves in a way that distorts true reality. Our Zen training re-calibrates our body/heart/mind to position ourselves in the immediacy and intimate truth of this very moment.
Most kong-ans help us to access this point, and perhaps the most famous of all is this one:
A monk once asked Chao-chou, “Does a dog have Buddha-nature?”
Chao-chou answered, “Wu.”
In many cultures, dogs have been near the bottom of the heap of sentient beings, worthy of only the meanest scraps. This questioning monk tests Chao-chou by asking, What about dogs? Do they have it? But has Chao-chou failed the challenge—or has he challenged his student further?
As the bright moment flies through the air, may we see it clearly, catch it, and then, when the next moment-master calls, may we find the grace and wisdom to let the old one go.
Yours in the dharma,
Jeong Ji
