
John Tarrant presented this old Japanese koan over on his blog Zenosaurus (see blog roll):
Stop the war.
Coming as I do from Belfast this one resonated with me for the obvious reasons, but I suspect that if any of us though about it for a while we'd come up with areas of 'war' or conflict that we could directly address ourselves:
'Me' versus 'him or her' and/or vice versa.
'Me' versus 'them' or 'that group' and/or vice versa.
'Me' versus 'aspects of myself' and/or vice versa.
'Me' versus 'Zazen' and/or vice versa.
'Me' versus 'The world' and/or vice versa.
'Me' versus 'work' or 'this situation' and/or vice versa...
Besides such obvious ones, it seems that the 'war' gets down to very, very subtle levels. It seems, in practice, that there are even nameless, formless arenas of conflict.
One such front that strikes me today is this: Can we take the concrete step to disarm the war between delusion and realisation?
Regards,
Harry.