https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/16f6vd3/an_iron_broom_named_wu/
created by Express-Potential-11 on 10/09/2023 at 17:59 UTC
10 upvotes, 3 top-level comments (showing 3)
From Zens Chinese Heritage by Ferguson. This book is mostly a translation of the Compendium of Five Lamps which was a combination of 5 other records similar to the Transmission of the Lamp, which dates to the mid 1200s. It starts with Bodhidharma and ends with Wumen.
It says this passage is from the Record of Rujing
Tiantong addressed the monks, saying, “Thoughts in the mind are confused and
scattered. How can they be controlled? In the story about Zhaozhou and whether or not a dog has buddha nature, there is an iron broom named ‘Wu.’ If you use it to sweep thoughts, they just become more numerous. Then you frantically sweep harder, trying to get rid of even more thoughts. Day and night you sweep with all your might, furiously working away. All of a sudden, the broom breaks into vast emptiness, and you instantly penetrate the myriad differences and thousand variations of the universe.”
Compare with Dahui letter here, translation by Broughton
I hope that you will just practice at the point where the sensation of uncertainty is not yet smashed—walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, never letting go: A monk asked Zhaozhou whether a dog
has the buddha-nature. Zhou said: “Wu 無!” This one word is a sword for smashing the uncertainty-mind of samsara. The hilt of this sword lies only in the hand of the person on duty. You can’t have someone else do it for you. You must do it yourself. If you stake your life on it, you’ll be ready to set about doing it. If you’re not yet capable of staking your life on it, just keep pressing hard at the point where the uncertainty is not yet smashed. Suddenly you’ll be ready to stake your life on one throw—done! At just that time, you’ll be confident that stillness-time is noisiness-time, that noisiness-time is stillness-time, that talking-time is silence-time, that silence-time is talking-time. You won’t have to ask anyone else about this, and also spontaneously you won’t accept the nonsensical teachings of perverse teachers. I very much pray.
And here
If you want to make suffering and joy indistinguishable, simply do not “rouse
yourself to engird mind” or “employ your mind to quell delusive thought.” Twenty-four hours a day make yourself “composed” [like the Confucian Analects’ description of the gentleman].535 If suddenly habit-energy from past births arises, don’t apply mental exertion to hold it in check. Merely, in the state where the habit-energy arises, keep your eye on the huatou: “Does even a dog have buddha-nature? No [wu 無].” At just that moment [wu 無] will be “like a single snowflake atop a red-hot stove.""
Discussion notes:
1. What's wrong with confused and scattered thoughts?
2. What kind of activity is Rujing describing?
3. Why would the "iron broom" ever break?
4. Who would benefit from this expedient?
5. Dahui was writing to a specific person, but who was Rujing recording his words for?
6. What's the benefit of this kind of practice?
My thoughts:
Dahui talking about "rouse yourself to engird mind” or “employ your mind to quell delusive thought.” I had to look up engird. Didn't mean what I thought it meant. Cleary translation says "keeping mind still" and "forgetting concerns".
Not trying to suppress thoughts but bringing up huatous just sort of disrupt your train of thought.
Idk kind of works. While I was on a plane, i waited till I felt my thoughts going on and then did the whole Mt. sumeru thing and yeah kind of shut it up.
Planes man. How do they work?
Comment by UnderstandingAnimal at 10/09/2023 at 19:04 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Perhaps it is the owls who have had Buddha nature all along, since they keep saying "Wu."
Comment by [deleted] at 10/09/2023 at 21:06 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Faith and doubt are two directions of same broom. Broom is expendable. Big cost to save it. With one sweep it must destroy the universe. With the other, manifest one. Neither of any real value. [subjective opinion on broom salvaging]
Comment by ewk at 10/09/2023 at 19:27 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Who has this "hiatus" ever worked for? Where's their AMAs?
Where's there high school book reports?
Once you put down critical thinking... some people who maybe weren't that great at it to begin with might find it hard to pick it up again.