Episode 2: In the Sea of Ise 10,000 Feet Down
By John Tarrant
Koans transform us through immersion and saturation, by dissolving the usual boundaries we keep between us and the world. If you have an unanswerable question, the koan is designed to open it.
Today’s episode explores a koan from the Miscellaneous Collection that poses:
In the Sea of Ise,10,000 feet down, lies a single stone. I want to pick up that stone without getting my hands wet.
Roshi John Tarrant offers a guided meditation down through the shipwrecks, strange creatures, and unimaginable depths of our lives, showing how koans offer a kind of imaginative mindfulness by bringing attention to reality beneath the level of our usual thoughts.
This koan brings images and sensations with it. There’s water, earth, depth, sinking, light from above, pressure, breath, moving in the dark, finding, meeting, meeting yourself, rising up, shallowness, an impossible feat, getting immersed, and being untouched. Also, foxes.
Listen to this episode for a full experience of one of the great Japanese koans.
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The sweetness in the path of using a koan is that it assumes that we can change.
— John Tarrant
Show notes:
- What is the nature of awakening
- How to reach the depths of the Sea of Ise without getting wet
- What does meditation do
- Should you ask questions during meditation
- What is the role of water in koans
Courtesy never hurts with sea monsters.
— John Tarrant