the monkey pod tree in the beach park

In Zen Buddhism there is a rich literary tradition known as koans. Koans are “public cases” in which a Zen teacher spontaneously dialogues with a student, and some of their exchanges have been collected over the centuries and used as ways to contemplate essential truth. One of the most well known koan is from the collection entitled Mumonkan, case number 37.

The monk Joshu is the Japanese form for the 8th or 9th century Chinese Zen teacher Zhaozhou. Here it goes:

A monk asked Joshu, “What is the meaning of Bodidharma’s coming to China ?” Joshu said, “The oak tree in the front garden.”

On another occasion:

A monk asked Joshu, “What is the living meaning of Zen?.” Joshu said,
“The cypress tree in the courtyard.”

Here is a commentary by the ancient compiler of this collection:

“Words cannot express things;
Speech does not convey the spirit.
Swayed by words, one is lost;
Blocked by phrases, one is bewildered.”

From “Two Zen Classics: Mumonkan & Hekiganroku,” p. 110
Translated with commentaries by Katsuki Sekida

The ordinary monkey pod tree in the park is not just a tree. If we really experience the tree the world stops, and reduces itself, or expands itself to be just the tree. This liberates us from the tyranny of our mind. We are then potentially liberated by every moment in our life if we allow ourselves to enter into them in this intimate way.

You could think that Joshu is presenting some wonderful, mystical Zen experience. We all want to experience some wonderful mystical high. But this is not so terribly relevant to our lives. Who has the time?

If we limit our spiritual life to peak mystical experiences, I really wonder how important they would be to us.

The whole of the spiritual life is the ordinary world. It is not apart from it.

What’s the living meaning of life?—the monkey pod tree in the park.

There is a quiet, dignified feeling to trees. Also to animals, children, food, sunsets, disease, frustration, impatience and death.

If we dig into this koan a little more, we find that the monk went on to complain to Joshu, please don’t teach me about outside things, I am asking about inner truth.

Joshu says very quietly, I don’t each you about outside things. The whole dialogue repeats again.

This points to a very essential truth. Whenever we say “I see the monkey pod tree in the park” we are living in a conceptual universe, which is always a day late and a dollar short, as they say.

“Swayed by words, one is lost;
Blocked by phrases, one is bewildered.”

I and tree and see are all concepts I have created that obscures my immediate experience. So-called awakened experience is simply letting seeing see or hearing hear. At that moment there is no time, no space, no self, no other. There just is what is. Full and complete, lacking nothing.

Through this practice day in and day out we shed our more brutal conditioned conceptual approach to life. Then these experiences become our default state, which is not really a state. It is our natural essence, which is love.

“Words cannot express things;
Speech does not convey the spirit.
Swayed by words, one is lost;
Blocked by phrases, one is bewildered.”

Life is eloquent. Life is its own meaning. The world is its own magic, if only we would appreciate it. In order to do this we need to stop seeking some additional meaning and let things come forward and enlighten us to their magic. To speak to us in their true voices. It will tell us all we need to know.

“The buddha in the mind is like a fragrance in a tree.
The buddha comes from a mind free of suffering,
Just as a fragrance comes from a tree free of decay.
There’s no fragrance without a tree and no buddha without the mind.
If there’s a fragrance without a tree it’s a different fragrance.
If there’s a buddha without your mind, it’s a different buddha.”

- from The Teachings of Bodhidharma

Keep doing doing your practice. It works!