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Koan: It Takes as Long as It Takes [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-18
It is not enough to hear and repeat the teaching of the Buddhas. One must penetrate them, realizing no-self and so on, and be able to raise the eyebrows and blink the eyes of Shakyamuni Buddha himself. Some do so immediately, like the Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng, who could expound the Diamond Sutra on first hearing it. Some take decades, like Ananda and others of note.
Ananda asked Makakashō, “My elder brother in the Dharma, when the World-honoured One Transmitted the kesa of gold brocade to you did He pass on anything else?” Maka-kashō called out, “Ananda!” When Ananda acknowledged the call, Makakashō said, “Chop down the flag pole in front of your temple gate!” and Ananda awakened to his TRUE SELF. For twenty years he was the Buddha’s attendant; there was nothing that the Buddha had preached which he could not repeat for he had constantly studied how the Buddha deported Himself. At the same time that Shakyamuni Transmitted the EYE AND TREASURY OF THE TRUE LAW to Makakashō, He also entrusted (but did not Transmit) IT to Ananda, saying, “Please assist him in his Transmission of IT .” Because of this, Ananda attended on Makakashō for the following twenty years and it was never said of him that he failed to communicate the EYE AND TREASURY OF THE TRUE LAW completely and in every way possible. We know for a fact that this Way of ours does not depend on how much you have heard or on having realized for certain, as this instance should make evident. Ananda attended on Makakashá for twenty years but did not have a great awakening to his TRUE SELF.
The matter of ‘chopping down the flag pole in front of the temple gate’ is as follows. In India the custom was that, when the Buddha’s disciples entered into a debate with non-Buddhists, both sides would raise a flag. When one side was bested, their flag was taken down; the defeat was thereby signalled without recourse to sounding drums and bells. In today’s story, too, it is as though Makakashá and Ananda had raised flags in debate. At this point, were Ananda to emerge victorious, Makakashá would have to lower and roll up his flag for, when the one comes forth, the other disappears. In the present story, however, this was not what happened. ‘Makakashá’ is one flag pole and ‘Ananda’ is another. As long as both are ‘temple flag poles’, the UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE will not manifest ITSELF . When one flag pole was, is and will be chopped down, the temple’s FLAG POLE will manifest. When Makakashá instructed Ananda to chop down the flag pole before his temple gate, Ananda had a great awakening to his TRUE SELF because master and disciple had merged in the Way. After this great awakening, ‘Makakashá’ was also chopped down and ‘the mountains and rivers’ all disintegrated; as a result, the Buddha’s Kesa descended naturally onto Ananda’s head.
Soto Zen monks put their kesas on their heads and recite the following verse before putting them on.
How great and wondrous are the clothes of awakening,
Formless, yet embracing every treasure.
Pure and beyond the world is the Buddha Nature of the trainee.
Oh, holy Buddha, we take refuge in thee.
The same thing happened to 香嚴智閑 Xiangyan Zhixian (?-898) also written 香巖 (Rōmaji:) Kyōgen Chikan, who decided that Zen was too hard for him, and spent twenty years as a hermit. One day as Xiangyan was scything grass, a small piece of tile was knocked through the air and struck a stalk of bamboo. Upon hearing the sound of the tile hitting the bamboo, Xiangyan instantly experienced vast awakening.
We also have lesser cases to consider. Kos has told the story of being a Reaganite in the 1980s, and realizing in the 1990s that Reaganism is nonsense.
Wikipedia: Markos Moulitsas
Prior to enlisting in the Army, Moulitsas was a member of the Republican Party. During the 1988 presidential election, he served as a Republican precinct captain and assisted with the re-election campaign of Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde.[5] However, during his time in the military Moulitsas began a transition in his political philosophy that would lead him to change his party affiliation from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party.[2]
Then he started Daily Kos, and here we are. In contrast are people like this, who took 45 years to see the light.
x Tony Ortiz bolts GOP, becomes Democrat “I once believed Republican Party stood for duty, accountability, individual freedom, and family values—And I can no longer stand by in silence as it turns its back on the very people I’ve sworn to protect.” floridapolitics.com/archives/736...
[image or embed] — LynnZ 💙 (@zizij.bsky.social) May 14, 2025 at 7:03 PM
The question has been asked, what took him so long? In a word, self.
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