65) The sound if something struck! - and I have forgotten all I knew. Training was not even temporarily necessary. In movement and deportment I manifest the Ancient way, And fall not into a possible pessimism. Nothing of me remains when I pass, In speech and manner free of dignity. All those who have reached this state of knowledge by experience, Without exception tell of this supreme activity-potential. (Collection of Vines and Entanglements)

Which line is most important?

64) Go straight on the narrow mountain path that has a thousand curves.

I stood up, slowly looked around and very slowly took a step. Then I walked as we do in Kinnin.

63) Extinguish a candle light a thousand miles away.

I sat and breathed out while miming putting out a candle in my heart. Roshi said I could have just reached out to an imaginary candle at arms length too. Its about no separation and so also no distance. I also had a lot come up about the relationship between flames that upset me in the world, like worries about how people treat me at work and insecurities and desires I have burning inside me. What if I let some flames within me go out?

62) 1. How would you react if the devil's came out from hell with a cart and asked you to ride on it?

I mimed riding in a cart that was careering out of control as if I was holding on for grim life.

Roshi said, if a big 4×4 with tough looking fellas pulled up and asked me to get in would I? I said in real life, definitely not.

61) 1. Kyosei asked a monk, “Outside the doors, what is the noise?” The monk said “That is the voice of the raindrops.” (Blue Cliff Record, Case 47)

I tapped my fingers on the floor, rippling like rain.

Brings up moments when I feel the material things in a room and its walls and furniture, sing to me.

When is something trying to communicate with me and when is it just happening regardless of me?

60) 1. Joshu's unsheathed sword.

Glittering severe frost is illuminating.

Asking what it is,

The body is cut in half.

Which line is the most important?

The body is cut in half I mimed pulling a sword from its sheath, raising it and cutting myself in half, throwing my arms out and to the floor, collapsing my split body.

59)

58)

57)

56)

55)

54) 1. Daizui's Kalpa fire 2. A monk asked Dauzui: “When the great thousand universes altogether and utterly perish in the kapa fire, is it doubtful what will happen? Does the self perish or does it not perish?” Daizui replied “It perishes.” The monk said “If so, following the universe, will it perish? Daizui said “It will follow on and perish.”

I am on 🔥, act like I am on fire.

53)

52) 1. Present Mumons Mu and Joshus Mu using your hands.

Made an ‘0’ with my hands.

51) 2. Recite a poem in connection with Mumons Gatha using things in the room.

Go round the room pointing at things calling them Mu!

50) Capping phrase of the above.

49) The gatha (20 MU) of Mumon Muji.

Mu Mu Mu Mu Mu

Mu Mu Mu Mu Mu

Mu Mu Mu Mu Mu

Mu Mu Mu Mu Mu

Mu Mu Mu Mu Mu

Go round the room pointing at things calling them Mu!

48) Capping phrase of the above.

47) 1. When did that tree grow?

The 4th of March 1978, when I was born.

45) 1. Joshua Cypress tree

A monk asked Joshu “What is the meaning of the Bodhidharma coming from the west?”

Joshu replied “The cypress tree in the garden.” (The Gateless Gate Case 37)

Be the Cypress tree.

44) 1. Master Gosi-en told the monk. There is a man who can write the five words “why the Bodidharma came to China (from the west)?” On the paper of the universe using Mount Sumeru as a brush and the ocean as an inkwell. If you can do it I will open my prayer mat and bow. ( Collection of Vines and entanglements)

Mime dipping my pen in Mount Sumeru and writing the phrase in the air.

43) Master Ungo once was at Ryumon (Dragons Gate) temple. One day a monk was bitten in his leg by a snake. Bitsugen, one of the monks, asked “this is the Ryumen, why was he bitten by a snake?” The master, in reply suddenly manifested the figure if the great man. Later, Master Engo heard about this. There is a priest at Ryumen. Owing to him the Buddha dharma of Eastern Mountain (where the Ryumen is located) has not been reduced yet. (Collection of Vines and Entanglements)

Present the Masters manifestation of the great man.

I jumped as if there were a snake.

42) Isan's Buffalo

Isan once told the student “I, an old monk will be reborn as a buffalo in the front house of a temple a hundred years later and five words will be on the buffalo. If you call this monk Isan, it is a buffalo. If you call it a buffalo it is monk such and such. Tell me what do you call it? Kyozan made a bowl and went away. (Collection of Vines and entanglements)

41) Where does the rain come from?

40) 1. What colour does the wind have?

Gesture the wind blowing and say the colours of the things it is blowing on. It has no innate colour of its own.

39) 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)