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35) 1. How do you hear it closer?

I blew and gestured - being the wind. This is not the answer to the koan. I've been sitting with the feeling that in this koan, the wind represents all the things and changes I’m unaware of. The wind is all the things happening, all the social signals I miss. All the changes I dont want to accept. I am the tree listening to the wind when I'm trying to join in and catch up with the conversation. I can be the wind by moving things and finding other ways to communicate. I naturally have really wide eyes, but sometimes if I'm being wide eyed with someone, I find myself hardening them. Now Im feeling pressure from in front of and around my eyes not to be open and expressive. What is that force I can feel?Sharon said it could be social pressures im feeling, in the room now, from the wider world. She suggested instead of trying to interpret the force, I should focus my awareness on what my eyes are doing and what happens with that awareness. Not trying to get my eyes to do anything, but just being aware of what they are doing. It's been an incredible opening.

34) 1. A new born baby… it is provided was all six consciousnesses? (Blue Cliff Record, Case 80)

A monk asked Jôshû, “Does a newborn baby have the sixth consciousness or not?” Jôshû said, “Bouncing a ball upon swift waters.” The monk also asked Tôsu, “What does ‘bouncing a ball upon swift waters’ mean?” Tôsu said, “Thought by thought, the flow never stops.”

33) 1. Why has the Western Barbarian no beard? (Gateless gate, Case 4)

/Mime stroking my beard. Roshi’s comment you don't have a beard, you are a beard./

32) 1. What answer to the above would a man under a tree give?

/Mime trying to catch the man falling from the tree./

31) 1. Kyogen's man up a tree:

Kyogen said, “It's like a man (a monk) up a tree, hanging from a branch with his mouth: his hand cannot grasp a bough, his feet won't reach one. Under the tree there is a man who asks him the meaning of Dharmas coming from the West. If he does not answer, he will lose his life. What should he do? ( Gateless Gate, Case 5)

/Mime falling from a tree and crashing to the ground. Roshi added ‘and then die’./

30) 1. How do you answer if you are asked “What is the meaning of the Bohdidhsrma's coming from the west?” by someone in a dream. If you cannot answer it, the teaching of the Buddha is worthless.

/Mime being asleep on the ground./

29) 1. A monk asked Mumon, “How do Buddhas appear?” Unmon answered: “The Eastern mountain walks along the stream” (Collection of Vines and Entanglements).

/Put my hands up into a triangle above my head, pretend to be a mountain and walk./

28) 1. Absorbed in the flight of birds, he sees mindlessly.

/I mimed tracing the path of a murmuration of starlings. Roshi suggested I mime being a bird./

27) 1. Through the murmering waters he walks leisurely.

/Walk like water flowing./

26) The bridge flows, the water does not.

25) A man passing on a bridge.

/Wave. I am the man passing on a bridge./

24) 1. Walking, yet riding a buffalo.

/Walk with a gait like I'm on a buffalo./

23) Empty handed, yet holding a hoe.

Mime holding a hoe

22) Bring me the vegetable salad made of Sunyata (emptiness).

21) Bring me the powder made out of Sunyata (emptiness).

20) Draw mount Fuji from your bosom pocket.

19) Take out a five storied pagoda from a tea pot.

18) Sei-Kenco of Cho composed a gatha as he was enlightened upon hearing a thunder strike:

  
  Sitting in the room in absolute silence:
  
  Mind source unmoved
  
  The striking of thunder has opened the gate of the heads crown.
  
  The beginningless self.nature has been awakened.
  
  Which line is the most important?
  
  Present the implication (content) of the line.

17) A-ji Khan (note; A is the first letter of the alphabet and it also means ‘the beginning of growth, the source of the universe’.

16) How do you get out of a stone grave which is locked from the inside?

15) Bring me the peel of the orange you are yesterday.

14) Create a piece of land.

13) Create a mountain.

12) When the world was created, what was God (the creator) like?

11) Save a hungry ghost.

10) Stop the fighting across the river.

9) Without using your hands, make this old man get up.

8) That girl over there, is she the elder or the younger sister?

7) Hide yourself in a pillar !

6) Show me an unmovable tree in a heavy wind?

5) How do you stop a rowing boat?

4) How do you stop the sailing boat?

3) How do you stop 4 different sounds?

2) How do you stop the sound of a temple bell?

1) A monk asked Joshu, “Has a dog Budha nature?” Joshua answered “Mu!” (The Gateless Gate, Case 1)