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Text August 14, 2020

The Spirit of Love and Joy and Play in Koans

John Tarrant

Koans
Emperor Wu Questions Bodhidharma (BCR1)(BS2), Vast Emptiness Nothing Holy (BCR1)(BS2), Yanguan's Rhinoceros Fan (BCR91)(BS25), Yunmen’s Medicine and Sickness Cure Each Other (BCR87)
Tags
2014 Summer Sesshin, Blue Cliff Record, Bodhidharma, Embodying koans, play, Rhinoceros, sickness and medicine, What am I, Yunmen

So, value the sort of play, and as I said, see if you can break the koan—the koan will be amused. And see it, and let it—let it into your heart. And see what comes, or follow it around, or have it follow you. And finally you’ll find, you’ll realize, “Oh, I’m here. I’m free.”

5546 Words
Audio December 3, 2019

The Consequences of Asking: Who Am I?

John Tarrant

Koans
Avatamsaka Sutra: Indra's Net, Indra’s Net (Sutra), The Land of Demons, Who Am I?
Tags
” good/bad, 2017 January Sesshin, creating a “me, do the opposite, fun, identity, improv, play

Inquiring into being a Me, a Who, a Somebody, into What am I?, I lose ‘myself’ and then ‘Everything is true’! Why doesn’t that awareness stay? More interesting to have fun than to be ‘somebody’, but we cling to that. Asking ‘Who am I?’ has a subversive quality: it undoes the world you’re in, your identity. Then the radiance of the universe comes towards you, you’re drenched with the universe, because you’re not in the way.

47' 27"