Question
My name is Peter Hinz, and I live in a town called Perstrop. I am a 35-year-old Swede who would like to use the MU koan but doesn’t know how. I have been practicing for two years, concentrating on my breathing.
Please help me.
Peter Hinz
Answer from Master Kosen
My dear Peter,
The horses must pull the cart, not the other way around. People want to use techniques for their personal development, and traditional practices take on a “New Age” look. People rush to consume in the supermarkets of spirituality. They want to enrich themselves, develop spiritually. It is a completely selfish approach, and you end up heading south when you wanted to go north.
Master Dogen says on this subject:
“To study the Way is to study the self.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be confirmed by all the existences of the cosmos.”
You want to use the Mu koan, but the Mu koan must use you. What is the Mu koan, to begin with? Mu means no. Someone asked Master Joshu, “Does a dog have Buddha nature?” and he answered, “Mu!” This means “nothing,” or “no,” or “Shit!” or “neither yes nor no.” These practices involving old koans are not natural. By concentrating on them, you create an artificial situation. All the phenomena of our lives are natural, living koans, so why use artificial koans? It is like trying to smell the fragrance of a plastic flower. In any case, your idea of Mu is not the real, living Mu. If you knew the real, living Mu, it would be using you, not the other way around.
Kosen