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Silver Mountain and Iron Cliff (BCR 57)
KOAN:
Before you’ve seen through, it all seems like a silver mountain, like an iron cliff.
—Yuanwu’s comment in Blue Cliff Record Case 57
Dharma Theme
March 22, 2023
Dharma Theme: In the Wild – Mountain Koans & Poems
PZI Teachers
Koans
A Thousand Mountains (MK13), Be a Tiger in the Mountains, Changsha Wandering in the Mountains (BCR36), Dancing Mountains (MK5), Dongshan's Voice of the Cuckoo (MK52), Going to Wild Places (MK73), Silver Mountain and Iron Cliff (BCR 57), The Green Mountain Walks About (BS41), Tortoise Mountain Wakes Up (BCR22), Yunmen's East Mountain Walks on the Water (EV49)
Eventually you come to a place where you can’t go on and you can’t go back. You have arrived at the base of cliffs; you can’t scale them, you can’t get around them, and there’s no handy tunnel through them. It’s a daunting place—that’s the point of it. And when you arrive here your life and your journey can become your own.
Text
November 23, 2022
A Blue Cliff Record Journey of Not Picking & Choosing
It’s remarkable that the Picking & Choosing koan appears four times in the Blue Cliff Record, which contains only one hundred cases. So, what to do with it? Whatever you see is going to be true, it’s going to belong to you.