What is Zen?
Snow in a silver bowl.

In answering his own question, Baling quotes from Dongshan’s “Song of Precious Mirror Samadhi,” where Dongshan writes,

A silver bowl filled with snow, a heron hidden in the moon.

Beauty is dynamic and fresh, neither stale nor static. The snow slowly fills the silver bowl on a winter’s day. The two are similar, the white snow reflected in the sides of the bowl, but they are not the same. So it is with the vastness, common to all things, and yet each thing stands on its own in the words of Shitou, “interwoven and not interwoven, this interweaving goes on and on as everything stands in its own place.” I find this almost excruciating in its beauty.

As I meet life, say, in trees, birds, and foxes, I feel the wind in my boughs, and feel the ground under my feet as I run across the field. And I am I, the trees are trees, and foxes, foxes. Interwoven and not interwoven. Also, in relationship, I experience deep kinship, call it love. We are interwoven and too, we stand in our own place, similar, but not the same.

Gazing upon such beauty, we become the beauty that is in and around us. “What is Zen? Snow in a silver bowl.” When Dongshan was crossing a stream, he had a deep awakening, expressing himself thus, “It now is me. I now am not it.”

—David

Come join us Thursdays, for koan meditation, a dharma talk, and conversation. Register to participate. All are welcome.

I hope you will join us.

—David Parks Roshi, Director of Bluegrass Zen