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To: tariqas Elist From: Haramullah (tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com) Subject: Sufism and Koans Date: 49940827 My brother Rahim quotes a koan and writes: |--"Why did Bodhidharma come to China? (Answer:) The oak tree in the |--garden." Individual koans only have answers within the context of the student and master. To take them out of it and say that 'the answer' is a particular thing is to misconstrue the event. The word above should not be "Answer" but "Response", for this was the response given within a traditional (popular/famous) interaction. [Unattributed:] |-Do we experience this answer as incongruous? The zen perspective is |-that the question is absurd. There is no 'zen perspective'. Zen is beyond any single perspective. This is why there is such a voluminous torrent of books and books about books with commentaries and whatnot. There is no firm and stagnant doctrine except within particular religious sects. |-What matters is the suchness of the tree, the experience of reality |-as it is, rather than how it is distorted by conceptual filters. |-Although I can only hold open the question as to whether such unfiltered |-perception resonates with the stages of haqiqat and ma'arifat, I suggest |-a parallel to the fact of the revelation of Qur'an to the Messenger of |-God, as compared to the dunya-devious taunting challenge by the Quraish |-to physically demonstrate a book descending from heaven. I'm not sure that such intellectual speculation truly applies to the koan, though it is interesting and worthy reflection. [Rahim responds:] |Unlike Zen, Islam does not spurn intellectuality. One cannot leap |from ignorance to marifat. Every level is to be traversed and |respected. This is an overly extreme statement. Not only is Zen Buddhism too wide a range to encapsulate in such a statement, due to the fact that there exist two major schools within the tradition (centering on 'sudden enlightenment', to which Rahim refers, and 'gradual enlightenment', which contradicts the above), but sufism itself extends beyond the 'gradual enlightenment' camp: "How shall a man know God? Not by the senses, for He is immaterial; nor by the intellect, for He is unthinkable. Logic never gets beyond the finite; philosophy sees double; book-learning fosters self-conceit and obscures the idea of the Truth with clouds of empty words. Jalaluddin Rumi, addressing the scholastic theologian, asks scornfully: "'Do you know a name without a thing answering to it? Have you ever plucked a rose from R, O, S, E? You name His name; go seek the reality named by it! Look for the moon in the sky, not in the water! If you desire to rise above mere names and letters, Make yourself free from self at one stroke. Become pure from all attributes of self, That you may see your own bright essence, Yea, see in your own heart the knowledge of the Prophet, Without book, without tutor, without preceptor.' "This knowledge comes by illumination, revelation, inspiration." _The Mystics of Islam_, Reynold A. Nicholson, pp. 69-70. ________________________________________________________ I suspect that the most extreme difference between the use of the teaching story and the koan is that while the story may inspire within us a *readiness* for the Grace of God, the koan is thought to catalyze a transformation and make possible the Leap to the Other Shore. That is, it is the context in which they are used which is most at variance. The sufis locate the responsibility for progress ultimately to Allah, while the buddhists rest the responsibility squarely upon the shoulders of the individual monk. The master or guide may facilitate preparation in both cases, and it must proceed from a ground of dedication on the part of the aspirant, yet the expected *result* of teaching the story or giving the koan appears to be different. Alaikum dinakum waleyah din. Haramullah tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com
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