First of all, we would like to welcome Tesshin back from his successful sesshin in Japan.  He encouraged all of us to try to attend next year.  A sesshin provides the opportunity for deep practice away from the daily distractions of life.  We will also be planning a sesshin here in New York sometime in 2019.  

 

Tesshin’s talk this week centered on a koan from the Mumonkan – namely case #3 “Gutei’s Finger”  The case goes as follows…

 

There was a Zen master named Gutei.  When he was asked what he teaches, he would raise a single finger.  (What does that mean?)  One day a visitor asked Gutei’s attendant what the master taught.  The attendant too raised a single finger.  Hearing this, Gutei called in the attendant and without any warning cut off the attendant’s finger!  The attendant starts screaming and runs away.  Gutei calls out to him, and when the attendant turns around, Gutei raises a single finger.  At this moment, the boy becomes instantly enlightened.  When Gutei was about to die, his last words were “I obtained one-finger Zen from master Tenryû and used it all my life but still did not exhaust it.”

 

First, Tesshin said that he would not cut any fingers off in dokusan. J  He next explained the koan to us while warning us that explanations of koans are never the same as fully realizing them.  

 

So first, what does it mean when Gutei holds up a single finger?  It is not what you think?  If you believe it means that all is one – you have missed it.  If you think it means stop thinking thoughts, you have also missed it.  All that can be said is that the finger is beside the point – if you put a meaning on the finger then you have attached to a man’s finger and learned nothing.

 

So along comes the attendant who does not really understand what Gutei means by this one finger, but he thinks it is kind of cool and mystical.  When the visitor comes he simply “apes” the master in order to look accomplished.  How many of us have “played Zen master” on TV to impress our friends?  Gutei realized that the attendant was aping the finger and had become attached to a hand gesture.  He had to “cure” his student of this affliction of the mind right away.  As such, he calls the student in and suddenly cuts off the student’s finger!  Now the attendant is in piercing pain.  Pain like that is not thought about – it is not rationalized – it can only be experienced right here and right now.  Gutei understood this and raised a finger to the student.  Why did Gutei do this?  Gutei was clearly saying THIS IS IT!  The student immediately understood and was enlightened.  There were no books, no talks, and no fancy treatises.

 

Tesshin next mentioned Gutei’s final words about never exhausting the “one finger Zen.”  Tesshin’s point here is that true authenticity or finally seeing “suchness” can never be extinguished.  Academic understandings from a book can only take you so far, but full understandings last forever.

 

 Tesshin wrapped up the talk by wishing everyone a happy thanksgiving and reminded us to be cognizant of all the things we have to be thankful for.

 

We would like to give a special thanks to thezenuniverse.org for this week’s image.