PZI Teacher Archives
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Yunmen's Midnight
KOAN:
Yunmen said: You come and go by daylight. You make people out by daylight. But suddenly it’s midnight. There’s no sun, no moon, no lamp. If it’s a place you’ve been, then of course it’s possible. But if it’s a place you’ve never been, how will you get hold of something?
—Yunmen Weyan
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July 26, 2023
Carried in the Dark – On Lostness & the Spiral Path of Practice
I’ve been thinking that everybody needs to start by being lost. And that the Dharma is a spiral path. It will happen again, and then again, and then again. So, when you are lost, instead of thinking, “This is an abnormal, wrong situation,” that’s what koans give us—they say, “Oh, well, I’m lost, fortunately. I don’t know what I’m doing.”