“No.”

by 10k films on February 4th, 2012

“A monk asked Zhaozhou: “Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?”  Zhaozhou said: “No.”  This word No is not the No of existence and non-existence.  It is not the No of true nothingness.  Ultimately, what is it?

When you arrive here, you must abandon all with your whole body, not doing anything, not doing not-doing-anything.  Go straight to the empty and free and vast, with no pondering what to think.  The previous thought is already extinct, the following thought does not arise, the present thought is itself empty.  You do not hold to emptiness, and you forget you are not holding on.  You do not reify this forgetting: you escape from not reifying and the escape too is not kept.  When you reach such a time, there’s just a spiritual light that’s clearly aware and totally still, appearing as a lofty presence.

Do not wrongly give birth to interpretations: just bring up the meditation saying twenty-four hours a day, whatever you are doing.  Do not be oblivious of it for a moment: diligently come to grips with it and study it in fine detail.  If you keep studying like this, pulling it back and forth, when you reach the proper time, you better look back most carefully and see what Zhaozhou’s No means.  When you are [unable to turn back] like a rat going into a [hollow] horn, then views are cut off.

When those of sharp faculties get here, they empty through and smash the lacquer bucket [of ignorance] and capture and defeat Zhaozhou.  They have no more doubts about the sayings of the world’s [enlightened] people.

Even if you are awakened like this, do not speak of it in front of people without wisdom.  You must go see a legitimate teacher of the school.”

[A Buddha from Korea: The Zen Teachings of T’aego, translated by J. C. Cleary. Teaching No. 15 is on pp. 106–107.] See also the 10k film: “Master T’aego Addresses the Great Assembly of Dragons and Elephants“

Buddhist Economics by E.F. Schumacher

by 10k films on December 26th, 2011

“There is universal agreement that the fundamental source of wealth is human labour. Now, the modern economist has been brought up to consider ‘labour’ or work as little more than a necessary evil. From the point of view of the employer, it is in any case simply an item of cost, to be reduced to a minimum if it cannot be eliminated altogether, say, by automation. From the point of view of the workman, it is a ‘disutility’; to work is to make a sacrifice of one’s leisure and comfort, and wages are a kind of compensation for the sacrifice. Hence, the ideal from the point of view of the employer is to have output without employees, and the ideal from the point of view of the employee is to have income without employment…

The Buddhist point of view takes the function of work to be at least threefold: to give a man a chance to utilize and develop his faculties; to enable him to overcome his ego-centeredness by joining with other people in a common task; and to bring forth the goods and services needed for a becoming existence. Again, the consequences that flow from this view are endless. To organize work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve- racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence. Equally, to strive for leisure as an alternative to work would be considered a complete misunderstanding of one of the basic truths of human existence, namely that work and leisure are complementary parts of the same living process and cannot be separated without destroying the joy of work and the bliss of leisure…

It is clear, therefore, that Buddhist economics must be very different from the economics of modern materialism, since the Buddhist sees the essence of civilization not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of human character. Character, at the same time, is formed primarily by a man’s work. And work, properly conducted in conditions of human dignity and freedom, blesses those who do it and equally their products…

For the modern economist this is very difficult to understand. He is used to measuring the ’standard of living’ by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is ‘better off’ than a man who consumes less.”

from ‘Buddhist Economics‘ in ‘Small is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered‘ by E.F. Schumacher Read Full Article

The present

by 10k films on October 12th, 2011

The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered:

“Man…. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Master T’aego Addresses the Great Assembly of Dragons and Elephants

by 10k films on May 6th, 2011

T’aego Addresses the Great Assembly of Dragons and Elephants

A Ten Thousand Films Production 2011

This is a teaching given by the great Korean Zen adept known as T’aego Bou 太古普愚 (1301–1382).

The teaching begins: As T’aego went to the teacher’s seat, the head monk of the temple struck the gavel and announced:”O great assembly of dragons and elephants to the Dharma meeting! Observe the supreme truth!” To bring up the general guiding principles, T’aego said…

Full text of the teaching and film is here

Many Thanks to: PARTICIPANTS: All those who participated in the filming in London, Cairo, Siwa Oasis, Louisville, Furnace Mountain and San Francisco; TEXT: “A Buddha from Korea – The Zen Teachings of T’aego” Translated by J.C. Cleary; MUSIC: Ahmed Mouneimene for Korean Kayagum Sanjo Variation (가야금 산조), performed by Hwang Byeonggi (황병기) 1966; IMAGERY: Terje Sorgjerd for Milky Way galaxy footage tesophotography.com cc by-nc 3.0

“Ten thousand things return to the one; where does the one return to?”

“If everything is gone, nothing moves.” 圓覺經

“After breaking through the solid gate, the clear wind blows from the beginning of time.”

The Zen Teachings of T’aego

by 10k films on May 5th, 2011

“A BUDDHA FROM KOREA
The Zen Teachings of T’aego”
(Pages 90-92; Translated by J.C. Cleary, 1988)

This is the complete text of the teaching chapter entitled
‘The Supreme Truth’ from the T’aego book. The film
containing the same text is here: “Master T’aego Addresses
the Great Assembly of Dragons and Elephants.”

As T’aego went to the teacher’s seat, the head monk of the
temple struck the gavel and announced: “O great assembly
of dragons and elephants to the Dharma meeting! Observe
the supreme truth!”

To bring up the general guiding principles, T’aego said:
“The one road of transcendence is not transmitted by the
thousand sages. But tell me, what is it that`s not transmit-
ted? Here, if you get entangled the least little bit, you go
wrong by ten thousand miles. Those who know now to ask
are given thirty blows, and those who don`t know how to
ask are given thirty blows.”

[Some questions and answers went unrecorded.] T’aego
then said:

“Old Shakyamuni said, ‘The enlightenment of all the
buddhas is far beyond all words and talk.` So how could
the work in our supreme school’s vehicle use doings or
words? Contrived doings are playing with the spirit. Words
are the dregs. As for the true correct way of showing [real-
ity], all the buddhas of past, present and future ‘hang their
mouths on the wall’ and all the generations of enlightened
teachers hide their bodies in the weeds. Linji shouted when
they entered the gate; Deshan hit them: what child’s play!

“Knowing early on that it is like this, I was forced to take
my empty hands and wander like a cloud over the world
seeking teachers and inquiring after the Path. It was like
putting a head on top of a head. It also attracted suspicion
from people. Looking back on it coldly, it embarrasses me
to death. In the past in my native land I hid myself in the
mountain valleys and did not sell the Buddha Dharma
cheap to worldly people, or bury the wind of Zen [in
worldly concerns]. I have just gone on this way, totally at
ease, expansive and free, independent, happy, alive.

“My whole life an empty reputation has lingered
[around me]. Today I go too far by accepting another
invitation from the king of the realm. I ascend to this seat,
and look out on a sea of faces. I don‘t know what to do
about you, I can only chatter on. All of you will think,
‘Today an enlightened teacher appears in the world.’ What
a joke!

“When I talk like this, it’s already sleep talk. Why are all
of you sleeping with your eyes open?”

T’aego brandished his staff and said: “This happy as-
sembly was convened by [our patrons], the Source of the
Myriad Transformations, Mother of the Myriad Virtues,
Whose Virtue Covers Countless Worlds, Whose Capacity
Encompasses the Universe, Sage Among Sages, the Great
Yuan Son of Heaven, and Worthy Among Worthies, the
King of this land. Their benevolence flows on for ten thou-
sand generations, with the Path as their deep concern.
They are like the moonlight in the sky, with humane con-
cern for their fellow men as their governing policy. The
white sun is at high noon. At precisely this time, the in-
cense billows up from the golden censer, slowly seeping
into the jade palace. How can I, T’aego, a minor monk,
salute them?”

He brandished his staff again and said: “When the Path
[the Dao, the moral orientation of society and its members]
is secure, the orders of the emperor do not need to be
transmitted. When the era is one of purity, they stop extol-
ling utopia.”

[Later at the same session T’aego said:]

“In the old days the emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty
received the enlightened teacher Bodhidharma with full
ceremony. Then he asked: ‘What is the highest meaning
of the holy truths?` Bodhidharma said: “Empty, without
holiness’ The emperor asked: ‘Who is the one facing me
now?’ Bodhidharma said: ‘I don’t know.’

“This is the model of the first communication of the
message of Zen in the eastern lands. Today the king of our
country has invited me, a minor monk, to talk about the
vehicle of the Zen school. I salute His Imperial Majesty,
Her Imperial Majesty, the Imperial Crown Prince above,
the great assembly of humans and devas in between, and
the officials and commoners below, for bestowing the great
gift of the Dharma. I have not said a word, and Their
Majesties have not asked a word, Has it been the same as
or different from the questions and answers between Em-
peror Wu and Bodhidharma? If you can tell, I’ll allow you
one eye. If you cannot tell, listen to a verse:

“The high ancient’s voice is closest
Too bad the season is spring when the blossoms fall
I urge you to drain another cup of wine
At the gate where the sun rises in the west,
there are no old acquaintances”

“If everything is gone, nothing moves.”

by 10k films on December 3rd, 2010

from the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment 圓覺經

Amongst White Clouds – A documentary film

by 10k films on June 3rd, 2010

An unforgettable journey into the hidden tradition of China’s Buddhist hermit monks Amongst White Clouds is an intimate insider’s look at students and masters living in scattered retreats dotting China’s Zhongnan Mountain range. These peaks have reputedly been home to recluses since the time of the Yellow Emperor, some five thousand years ago. It was widely thought that the tradition was all but wiped out, but this film emphatically and beautifully shows us otherwise.

Watch full film (Google Video) ( especially last 10 minutes)

Journal of Buddhist Ethics Review article on film