Milkman Dan's Zen Teachings (a tangentially related spin-off of this )
Milkman Dan's Zen Teachings
Master Gettan asked a monk, "Keichu made a hundred carts. If he took off both wheels and removed the axle, what would he make clear about the carts?"
The monk turned to Master Gettan, balanced himself on one leg, and told him to shut the fuck up.
*** *** ***
A monk of the third level once asked Yung-Zhai-When, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Venerable Master When ordered him to stop speaking to those damnable Christian missionaries with no Buddha nature and to concentrate on the butterflies, dammit.
*** *** ***
The monks gathered in the hall to hear Master Hogen of Seiryo give teisho before the midday meal. They waited in silence for a day and a night and a day again, until Master Hogen stood up and said "Thus endeth the lesson" and went to leave. The monks demanded a refund, because hey, waiting two days and one night in silence wasn't on the brochure and whatever happened to the spiritual enlightenment thing they were promised, anyway?
*** *** ***
No monks were meditating in the garden when one of the nonexistent monks said to the other nonexistent monk that they were obviously not even here so why should they even meditate? "It is obvious you do not have zen eyes," said the second imaginary monk, "and you will therefore never achieve the buddha nature that you already have, but don't know about and never will". The first imaginary monk protested that the fact of the matter was that they were nonexistent, and the second monk asked him "What are facts?"
They're still sitting in the imaginary garden, not existing to this day.
*** *** ***
Dharma & Greg is an extremely boring television show.
*** *** ***
Wu-tsu said, “It is like a buffalo that passes through a latticed window. Its head, horns, and four legs all pass through. Why can’t its tail pass through as well?”
Wu-tsu also died without ever having sex, eating a meal not consisting entirely of gruel, and never ever feeling the slightest bit of excitement or adrenaline concerning anything at all.
Think about it.
*** *** ***
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Slap, went the moonbeam.
*** *** ***
A monk asked Korin, "Where Binky?" Korin replied quickly and with confidence, "I no know".
*** *** ***
A monk said to Tozan, "Cold and heat descend upon us. How can we avoid them?" Tozan said, "Why don't you go where there is no cold or heat?" The monk said, "Where is the place where there is no cold or heat?" Tozan said, "When cold, let it be so cold that it kills you; when hot, let it be so hot that it kills you."
"You're a death-obsessed little shit, aren't you, Tozan?" said the monk, and bought himself an air conditioner and maybe a few leg warmers.
*** *** ***
How can you get a goose out of a bottle?
You can't. Fuck you.
*** *** ***
A monk asked Chao Chou, "Does this newborn baby also have the sixth consciousness?" Chao Chou ate the baby, drank the sixth consciousness, and slept on the ceiling.
*** *** ***
If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. He's probably hitchhiking anyway, and nobody'll miss him.
*** *** ***
A humble fisherman came before Tzai-Don and entreated him to help his village. They had been invaded by a gang of honour-less bandit ronin who had killed many of the men, enslaved the children, and raped the women. They had burned down the houses and let loose the animals and were in the process of guzzling down the honey wine the villagers had saved for the harvest celebrations. The humble fisherman begged Tzai-Don to rally his many shaolin monks, trained in the deadly arts, to help his village and save them from certain destruction. Tears in his eyes, he went down upon his knees and shakingly offered all the possessions he had in this world and the afterlife, and all those of his family and his ancestors. Even in the mountain hideaway the cries of the women and the smell of burning thatch reached Tzai-Don and his fellow monks, and once again the fisherman cried for their mercy.
"Mu", said Tzai-Don.
*** *** ***
Whenever Chu-chih was asked a question, he simply raised one finger. Yes, that finger. Chu-chih was an irritable bastard and kinda hated anyone who disturbed him in the middle of his studies.
*** *** ***
Wakun complained when he saw a picture of the bearded Bodhidharma: "Why hasn't that fellow a beard?"
"He does have a beard, what are you fucking blind?" replied the rest of the monks.
"Only in one eye," said Wakun and acted all mysterious and shit but everyone knew the idiot really needed a good pair of glasses.
*** *** ***
Shou-Vhen was composing a nine-metred stanza of haiku couplets when he was interrupted by a flower. The flower grew, and grew, and grew.
Shou-Vhen never did finish that haiku.
*** *** ***
"Gwathoppa". That is all ye know, and all ye need to know.
*** *** ***
A monk came before Ray-Bies and asked "What is the dark side of the monkey?" Ray-Bies thought about giving the standard reply concerning how there wasn't one really, just that it was all dark but changed his mind at the last second and eventually decided not to post anything at all for a couple of days.
I'd always known it inside, but I really only felt it when my brother said it to my face - "You're a joke, Sumyunguy."
*** *** ***
As a young boy Lao Ji Hei was never fast enough to snatch the pebble from his master's hand. So he stopped trying. After forty years he tried again. Haha, that old bastard didn't even know where he was. Easy pebble.
*** *** ***
Wise Man say -
Oo zakka lungfish
Ultra-poo then sore?
Co-inky Dink my kitchen sink
Robot muesli four.
Hmm. Crazy Fucker say same thing.
*** *** ***
Xiao Xiao was fished by his master from the jaws of a hungry tiger when he was still an infant, born of a dead mother. He spent his days at the temple with his master and had an exceptional aptitude for meditation, philosophy, martial arts and prophylactic puppetry. At age 11 he defended the Mountain Temple from the Wimpian tribespeople by calling from the heavens a Scary Sounding Breeze, and at age 11 and 5 minutes he drove the Wimpians from the surrounding environs by Dialogue Registering Discontent. By age 19 he turned the Mei Dynasty's elite guard with only a wooden bokken sword and seven cannon battalions trained to fire upon signal of wooden bokken sword. By 21 he sipped from the holy fountain at Canton, fating him to rule the world at the expense of his flesh and blood. By 22 he married into the royal family and became successor to the throne. Then he died or something, I think.
*** *** ***
I am the spirit
I am the circle
Flowing eternal, I chase my behind
Which looks rather bootylicious this morning.
We are many
Yet in the enlightenment
We are also one
But I don't think you ready for this jelly.
I want only to want nothing
In that there is freedom
Untainted and pure
A sexy chica where my lady at
Jumpin
Jumpin
*** *** ***
The strength that comes from martial arts comes from mental discipline. Your mind must never stray from that place where it is in harmony within and without. Close your eyes, the ones that you see with inside. Let the light inside, and feel it clean you of guilt, fear, desire. Only then may you begin your search for that place. Do you understand that, Ralph Macchio?
A buddhist monk walks up to a hot dog vendor and says "Make me one with everything". Cymbals crash, audience booes, and a comedian leaves the stage in tears.
*** *** ***
Xing Chao was walking alongside the waterfront when a rainbow fish leapt from 'neath the waves and recited this haiku :
Red sky sailor's delight
The sorrow is all mine
Hook my tail to your eyes
And never see me die
Xing Chao chastised the fish for improper stanza-form in the offendable rhyme and went on his way. The rainbow fish was eventually caught and eaten by, ironically enough, Xing Chao's son who was also a pretty crappy haiku-ist. See, karma.
*** *** ***
One day at lunchtime, Brother Wei sat down much perturbed by the problems of the universe and accidentally spread satori upon his dish and came to psychically acknowledge his own wasabi. Where did he go wrong?
*** *** ***
A king once dreamt he was a butterfly who was dreaming that it was a king who was dreaming he was a buttterfly that itself was dreaming that it was a king who was dreaming he was a butterfly. When he awoke, he was never sure who he was or what he was dreaming or where in the fucking hell was his glasses, for the rest of his days.
*** *** ***
The many beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Greed, hatred and ignorance rise endlessly, I vow to abandon them. "Up, up, and away!" I shall say, as I rise through the clouds towards my fortress of solitude.
*** *** ***
Shuzan held out his short staff and said, "If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?"
"I don't want to call THAT anything, you. Just put on the damn condom and let's get this over with."
*** *** ***
No, not that Nirvana.
*** *** ***
Dogo paid a visit to his sick fellow monk, Ungan. "Where can I see you again if you die and leave only your corpse?" Dogo asked. "I will meet you where nothing dies," Ungan replied. Dogo criticized his response saying, "What you should have said is that there is no place where nothing is born and nothing dies and that we need not see each other at all."
Ungan told Dogo to answer his own damn questions from now on, rolled over in bed, and died.
*** *** ***
A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enlightened one return to the ordinary world?" Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches." The monk became enlightened at this response and started to smash mirrors and uproot flowers, until Kegon stopped him with a karate chop from on top of the spaceship.
*** *** ***
Preach the Dharma, Rock the Casbah.
*** *** ***
Will & Grace is an equally boring television show, just so you know.
*** *** ***
Edited by: The Ray at: 9/5/02 7:56:25 pm
Tales From Tobographic Oceans
From the mountaintop, the young prodigy Siu-Rong contemplates a cabbage that he holds in his hands. For 18 days he ponders its true nature: "Sustenance or projectile?" On the 19th day the ancient Master Hendin is found dead at the base of the mountain. Rotted brown cabbage leaves are mixed in with his hair, and scattered about his corpse.
3 days later Siu-Rong himself is found dead on the mountaintop. Starvation. Edited by: Old Toby at: 9/6/02 3:24:21 pm
people they come together
people they fall apart
no one can stop us now
'cause we are all made of stars
- 7th century haiku excerpt from Moe Beie
Yes, he's really THAT enlightened. He's the reincarnated spirit of the most revered sensei of the Ching dynasty, so what did you expect? It all makes sense now, doesn't it? The car commercials, the Bailey's Irish Cream, the strangely unjustified hatred Eminem has for him.
And he's not the only one. All our pop 'n rock acts take their souls directly from the top cut of recycled reincarnation circles. Brittany Spears has spent the last thousand years as the Whore of Babylon, Joan of Arc, Molly Malone, Shakespeare's "dark woman", and a couple of stints as various members of the royal family (most notably in the one instance of pysche-bifurcation which led to her simultaneous existence as both Mary Queen of Scotts and Elizabeth I). Mick Jagger was a duck, a spectacularly endowed cow, and Pope Clementine. Amerigo Vespucci and Michael Jackson both share the strange trait of having their nose fall off repeatedly, coincidence or karma?
The celebrities are out there.
*** *** ***
Hyakujo wished to send a monk to open a new monastery. He told his pupils that whoever answered a question most ably would be appointed. Placing a water vase on the ground, he asked: "Who can say what this is without calling its name?"
The chief monk said: "No one can call it a wooden shoe."
Isan, the cooking monk, tipped over the vase with his shoe and went out.
Hyakujo smiled and said: "The chief monk loses." And Isan became the master of the new monastery. And lo, the monastery was befamed far and wide for the exquisite mastery of the culinary arts that it alone possessed, it's monks schooled in the precise nature of the kitchen and all it's complexities, for the mighty and wise Isan whose specialty was the zen artistry of food preparation ruled over the students with a strong fist and an equally strong palette. He tolerated incompetence in none of his subordinates, striving for perfection with the zeal of the most strident gourmet, joining together the twin disciplines of kismetic satori with "would this taste better with salt, or is it fine on it's own?". The tipping of the vase with the wisdom of the shoe invoked a new age, once again the Royal Chopsticks of the Imperial Dynasty were put to use, in honour of Isan's accomplishments in reviving the long buried field of karate cooking.
And that's how "Iron Chef" got it's start.
*** *** ***
When you do nothing, what can you do? And when nothing does you, what can be done? And when the none is doing, where are you done? And if nothing is ever done, how do you do?
*** *** ***
My dried shitstick can beat the crap out of your dried shitstick. Literally.
*** *** ***
A monk once asked Yuman, "What teaching goes beyond the buddhas and the patriarchs?"
Yuman said, "Sesame Cake."
The monk repeated his question, puzzled at the strange response.
Yuman said, "Sesame Cake."
The monk, feeling correctly that he was upon the cusp of great understanding, repeated his question a third time.
Yuman said, "Sesame Cake".
"No no no," said the monk, "it's Sesame Street."
Yuman was silent, then. Mostly because finally, at long last, he saw the Snuffuluffagus and the Snuffuluffagus saw him and together, they were as one.
*** *** ***
"What is Buddha?"
"About three pounds."
"What is Dharma?"
"About three pounds."
"What's a Henway?"
"About three pounds."
*** *** ***
Harry forgot his Carey
Seppu's lost her Ku
Sue has no more Sides today
And shall no one love my "Mu"?
- haiku slash limerick slash bad poetry
*** *** ***
Thanks to the above, we are all now "closer "to John Lennon than any of us ever wanted to be. Chew on that * , Lindsey!
*** *** ***
"Bodhisattva" may be good, sure, but it doesn't hold a candle to "My Old School". You know it, I know it, everybody knows it.
And "Show Biz Kids" ain't bad either.
*** *** ***
Before taking up an offer for bukkake, make sure whether you're accepting a bowl of soup or repeated squirts of man-juice to the face. Both are equally disgusting, but the soup is less offending to your ego wheras the man-juice is in all probability of a higher nutritional value.
* on second thought, please don't
** on third thought, please do, and let us watch
*** on fourth thought, just videotape the proceedings
**** on fifth thought, make sure not to copy over any of my "X-Files"
***** on sixth thought, you can have this one, it's stupid anyway
Milkman Dan's Zen Teachings
Re: Milkman Dan's Zen Teachings
Re: Tales From Tobographic Oceans
Email This To a Friend
Topic Commands
Click to receive email notification of replies 
Click to stop receiving email notification of replies