Monday10 Dec 12:20 PM
Zen Master Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi
The New York Times ran a set of pieces on a very cool Japanese monk, 100-year-old Rinzai Zen master (one of the oldest in the world) Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, who tells followers, “Excuse me for not dying.”
Even more entertaining —and certainly more profound— are the three pages of Q & A's with him. I am especially fond of his husband-and-wife metaphor for the interplay of opposites, like enlightenment and non-enlightenment. Such insights help to extract my thinking out from the intellect and place it more firmly near the heart.
“Enlightenment? I don’t like this subject at all,” Joshu Roshi said, speaking in Japanese through his interpreter and chuckling softly in a rare interview. “I bet you can find all sorts of different descriptions of it in the bookstore.”
Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi quoted by Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times
Q: So Roshi is saying we must not strive for full time enlightenment? We have to compromise? I don’t get it.
A: Don’t worry, nobody in America understands. All Americans are attached to American culture and American way of life and Americans are attached to American democracy as well. That’s why I always angrily yell at my students, if you’re attached to American democracy you’ll never become the leaders of the free world again.
Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi & Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times
Link. Q&A link.
Biographical details on Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi.
Image source: Rick Scibelli Jr. for The New York Times.
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