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2013 Fall Sesshin
Koans in Your Life
To turn toward the difficult thing is usually a move of compassion. We think it’ll be a fierce warrior move, but it’s not, actually. And when we turn toward what’s difficult, it becomes mysterious and unknown and strange and interesting. Whatever it is, your dilemma—if you turn toward that, it’s to let the koan be there. So we stop trying to flee. And suddenly we’re at peace, and instead of it being the thing that we don’t want to do, it’s the gateway into freedom.
The Buffalo and the Lattice Window
John opens the Harvest Moon Retreat at the Angela Center with an ancient koan about a buffalo passing through a lattice window. “It is like a buffalo passing through a window. Its head, horns, and four legs have all passed through. Why is it that its tail cannot?” Meditation on the tail and the question of the tail. What is the tail, why could a huge buffalo enter but the tail cannot? —As recorded October 13, 2013.