![]() ![]() I calmed down, went home, and was determined to eventually know whatever it was that I didn’t know what I didn’t know had become the only thing worth knowing. She looked at me with a bemused expression and said, “I had a friend once who was hospitalized in Tangiers for existential anxiety.” Then she took me to a deli and bought me a pastrami sandwich to calm me down. “I don’t know anything,” I said over and over, slashing the air with my hands. I used the Zen center phone (cell phones were decades away) to call a friend who luckily answered and, recognizing an emergency when she heard one, showed up and walked me around the neighborhood. I was so freaked out that I couldn’t drive home. It suddenly hit me, with my PhD and bloated test scores and skipped grades in school, that nothing I knew was worth knowing. He went on like this, hinting at one thing or another but never exactly pinning anything down, and I kept thinking he didn’t answer the question! I so thoroughly and completely did not understand what was going on that everything I knew seemed irrelevant. And I thought he didn’t answer the question! And I thought, he didn’t answer the question! He held up a watch and asked, “Is this a watch or is this not a watch?” He looked at it. He held up a cup and asked, “Is this a cup or is this not a cup?” He took a sip. As a very new Zen student, I’m not sure what I was expecting, but whatever it was, it didn’t happen. Zen Master Seung Sahn, The Compass of ZenĪlmost exactly forty-four years ago, I went to a talk by the Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn at the Cambridge Zen Center. Zen Master So Sahn, The Mirror of Zen, translated by Hyon Gak If even one thought appears, that is already a mistake. Luohan Guichen, Case 20 of The Book of Equanimity, translated by Gerry Shishin Wick Of the Middle Way), translated by Jay Garfield Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika (Fundamental Wisdom Which leads to the relinquishing of all views. ![]() This aligns with the quote attributed to Confucius: “Look not at what is contrary to propriety listen not to what is contrary to propriety speak not what is contrary to propriety make no movement which is contrary to propriety” ( Analects of Confucius).“Bodhidharma in meditation,” 17th century, China. Sometimes, a fourth monkey is shown either crossing its arms or covering its genitals, which represents "sezaru" (do no evil). The most famous is found on the third panel of an eight-panel sculpture on the Sacred Stable at the Toshogu Shrine in Nikko (about 150 km north of Tokyo), which was built in 1617. In Japan, it is typically depicted by three monkeys - one covering its eyes, the next covering its ears and the third its mouth -because of the pun on zaru (an archaic suffix used to negate a verb) which sounds very similar to the Japanese for monkey.īy the 17th century, a group of three monkeys had become a popular depiction on Japanese Buddhist temples. It is believed that Buddhist monks brought the expression from India to Japan by way of China around the 8th century. In English, this expression is generally used in reference to those who choose to turn a blind eye to wrongdoings but its original meaning, rooted in Confucianism, is to teach prudence and the importance of avoiding evil. Ignore bad behavior by pretending not to see it.
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