The Whole World is Medicine (BCR87)

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KOAN:

Sickness and medicine are in accord with each other. The whole world is medicine. What am I?

– Blue Cliff Record, Case 87 (Yunmen)

Text October 22, 2020

The Nature of Practice

John Tarrant

Koans

Dogen's Turn Your Light Inward, Don't Believe It, Linji's There Is Nothing I Dislike (MK38a), Not Knowing Is Most Intimate (MK62), Shitou's Turn Your Light Inwards, Step by Step in the Dark (MK72), The Whole World is Medicine (BCR87)

Tags

2016 Summer retreat, 2016 Summer Sesshin, bodhisattva path, buddha nature, empathy, koan, light, Linji, moving in the dark, no rank, no-self, not knowing, practice, Take the backward step, unlooked-for help

Practice. The notion of practice, as something you embody, and you walk through, and you are—rather than something you add, like something added to gasoline. There’s also a sense of moving in the dark, in some way that’s positive. So that in a practice, “not knowing” is on your side.

9259 Words

Audio December 3, 2019

How is it that Sickness & Medicine Heal Each Other?

Jon Joseph

Koans

Sickness and Medicine (BCR87), The Whole World is Medicine (BCR87), Who Am I?, Yunmen’s Medicine and Sickness Cure Each Other (BCR87)