{"id":3383,"date":"2013-04-14T20:07:35","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T01:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3383"},"modified":"2013-04-14T20:07:35","modified_gmt":"2013-04-15T01:07:35","slug":"a-zen-life-going-to-the-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=3383","title":{"rendered":"A Zen Life, Going To The Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Zen practice, one of the most well known koans is the Dog-Mu<\/a> story. At least that’s what I call it. In a nutshell, a Zen monk asks a master, “do dogs have Buddha nature?” Can they become enlightened, like the Buddha? (Or as the Buddhists on a deeper level might say, are they already enlightened as all humans are, but mostly don’t realize it yet, as most humans don’t?) The master’s answer was “mu”, which is sometimes taken to mean “no”. But “mu” is also taken to mean . . . all sorts of things. For serious Zen students who go thru a multi-year study of koans with a master teacher, the Mu koan is a big milestone. Supposedly, most students spend 3 to 6 months pondering it and offering various explications to their teachers, before the teacher will give a “pass” and let the student go on to a different koan. <\/p>\n

I myself am not in a formal koan study at my zendo. I’m considered something of a rebel, someone not in the inner circles, albeit someone who is still valuable enough to be part of the mix. Our high command has no thought of sponsoring me as a future “sensei”, though. That bothered me for a few weeks, but I’ve learned to somehow get on with my life, along with my Zen practice (actually, the formula for my practice is that Zen = life and real life = real Zen). Nonetheless, I occasionally get out a random koan to ponder on my own, and I listen to our sensei discuss the meaning of various koans in his talks. Not too long ago he reflected on his own experiences studying the dog-mu koan under his own master. That got me to thinking on my own about the dog-mu koan. <\/p>\n

I’ve heard that many students get hung up on the “mu” part of it; i.e., what the heck does the master mean when he answers the question with a “mu”? Is he really saying that dogs, our closest friends from the animal kingdom, don’t have anything in common with the Buddha? Or is he just trying to mess up his student’s mind by using a word that can be a big ambiguous? (Zen teachers are wont to do that).<\/p>\n

I myself am not focusing on the “mu” part. I’m just going to put a “whatever” on that side of the equation. I want to zoom in on the basic question — what about dogs and awareness, enlightenment, true wisdom, kensho, that sort of thing. The first thing I would ask (answer a question with another question — a good legal tactic!) is, how can someone like me know if a dog is enlightened or not, or has Buddha nature or not, when I myself am not enlightened and do not have the Buddha’s nature. But then again, sometimes with humans we encounter someone who seems “together” and who really is a wonderful and genuine person. We can take a pretty good guess that this person has enlightenment and Buddha nature, whether she or he knows it or not (the ones who truly have it almost never know that they have it; being able to say “hey, I’m enlightened” pretty much spoils the enlightenment). <\/p>\n

So, can we also do this with dogs? Well, I have heard of people talking about dogs that were saints on four legs, that had a wonderful disposition and were caring and sweet all their lives. And you hear the occasional dog hero story, of a dog risking its life and sometimes dying in order to save its master. So maybe there are some “enlightened” dogs out there, mu or no mu. But for the most part, dogs are a mixed bag. They can be caring and sharing and playful, wonderful to be around. But they are also sometimes stupid and short-tempered. They can be rather crude, especially with regard to sex. They are still animals, after all. So, with most dogs, their lives are a mixed bag. Some signs of Buddhahood, but much animal nature remaining. <\/p>\n

The next question is . . . are humans really any different? Sure, we are much more intellectually sophisticated, we make use of complex languages that allow us to handle very abstract thought. We control the world much more than any dog ever will be able to do. And yet, when it comes to the things that count the most, i.e. our ability to share and care . . . we are not really much different from dogs. Maybe we aren’t any different at all!!!<\/p>\n

So, if dogs get a “mu”, then we humans get one too. Most of us aren’t any closer to Buddahood (or sainthood, from a Christian perspective). That’s rather humbling. But if nothing else, this koan points out that we humans have a long way to go in how we live our lives, before we ourselves could start challenging the big “mu”.<\/p>\n

There’s another interesting point to be made about dogs, Buddha natured or not. Dogs evolved from wolves. Scientific American recently ran a short article<\/a> about some genetic research regarding what dogs and wolves ate and when; this is relevant to the two competing theories of how modern dogs developed from feral wolves. One theory is that humans raided wolf packs and stole puppies to train them to fulfill human purposes (protection, work, and maybe later companionship). The second theory says that wolves themselves chose to approach human camps, first to scavenge food . . . but later allowed themselves to become more and more at home with humans. <\/p>\n

The recent genetic studies tend to support the later view, that wolves initiated contact with humans and kept up such contacts over time. You could look at all this in the following sense: wolves had the smarts to know that humans could provide food security, security that they could never attain. Humans could provide shelter and other amenities that would allow their numbers to be multiplied. So they took the deal — be nice to humans, don’t try to eat them, try to be their friends, watch their back, do their work for them. In return, they did indeed become fruitful and thrived very well. But at a significant cost: they were changed quite a lot. <\/p>\n

Again, it’s hard to find much wolf in a Bassett hound or a Pekingese. In a sense, wolves had to be willing to give up something about their original nature, and trust that whatever evolved from life around humans would still be respectable. (Tigers, by comparison, never took that deal, stayed what they were . . . and now, humans have driven them to the brink of extinction.) Despite their very great inter-dependence with humans, I’d say that dogs are still respectable animals. I would not call them simple lackeys of their masters (some dog-owners say that their dog is the true boss of the house!). <\/p>\n

So, if Buddhahood involves taking risks and being willing to evolve into something different and maybe better, if it means letting go of what you currently know and taking a risk on what may evolve over time . . . then maybe the wolf and dog indeed HAVE some “Buddha nature”, and set an example that we humans need to ponder in our own lives.<\/p>\n

I’m sure that most Zen teachers would not accept these thoughts and would not “pass” me on the infamous dog-mu koan. I gather that they would want something deeper, more wresting with the meaning of “MU”. Well, sorry . . . it’s the best I can do. And I’m going to just keep on doing it, as any other old dog would do, with or without Buddha nature!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Zen practice, one of the most well known koans is the Dog-Mu story. At least that’s what I call it. In a nutshell, a Zen monk asks a master, “do dogs have Buddha nature?” Can they become enlightened, like the Buddha? (Or as the Buddhists on a deeper level might say, are they already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3383"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3656,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3383\/revisions\/3656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}