Some Koan Dialogues...
A young monk appeared at the monastery one evening and asked to speak to the head monk.
The head monk, a wizened old man, painfully tottered up to meet the young monk. After several moments regarding one another, the young monk spoke.
"Good evening, sir. I have heard that you are the wisest man in these parts. May I ask you a question?"
The head monk nodded slowly.
"Would you like to hear about the exciting magazine subscriptions I'm offering to-" The head monk sighed in exasperation and turned to hobble off.
"Damn salesmen...", he muttered.
Kitsune the Fox Spirit and PoPo, the Racoon Spirit were regarding the full moon one night.
"Tell me, Popo.", said Kitsune. "What is the nature of man?"
"Fuck that!", snarled Popo. "What I wanna know is, who stole our tent?"
Master Yoshi was about to set off on a thousand mile journey of enlightenment. He was to travel to where the clouds meet the mountains, and perhaps encounter the Celestial Dragon which lived on the border between Heaven and Earth. For his supplies he was to carry a wooden block to rest his head on when he slept, a cup of water to drink, and a handful of seeds to nourish him. As he about to leave the temple, he regarded the younger monks calmly.
"A journey of a thousand miles...". He paused for effect. "Begins with a single step."
And with those words he walked through the main gate and down the road.
When he had gone out of sight, Manji the head disciple turned to the other monks.
"Party time!", he cried.
The wind and the sun had made a bet. A lovely young woman was travelling on the road below them, and the wind had bet the sun he could blow her travelling robe off her, revealing her supple form. The wind blew and blew, but the harder he blew, the tighter the woman clutched the robe around her.
Finally, the wind gave up. The sun smiled, and then began to shine brighter and hotter. As the woman got hotter, she finally removed her travelling robe, showing her beauty. Truly, the sun was victorious!
"What-ever, fag.", sneered the wind.
The travelling monk approached the noodle vendor.
"How may I serve you today, good sir?", asked the vendor.
"Make me one with every- OW!", exclaimed the monk, who had just been struck by a large stick the vendor had pulled from beside his cart.
"I swear, if I hear that damn joke one more time...", threatened the vendor, waving the stick at the monk.
Jumaji the disciple asked Haru the elder, "Teach me enlightenment."
Haru responded, "Show me the face you had before you were born."
Without missing a beat, Jumanji pulled a mask out from under his robe and put it on. It was a cheap knock-off of that "Scream" mask.
"Arrgh.", said Jumanji, waving his hands mock-menacingly at Haru.
Haru sighed. It was going to be a long day.
Naru the Wanderer happened upon a young man who had got stuck down a well.
"Oh, thank goodness!", exclaimed the young man. "Throw that rope next to you down here and pull me up!"
Naru smiled.
"Young man...", said Naru. "You only think you are trapped down a well. In reality, the well is trapped around you."
And with those words, Naru left the young man. The young man's curses had a strange echoing ring to them. Naru figured the young man's house was near, and he could go in and help himself to the young man's stuff.
Sayara the warrior-poet was being chased by a tiger through the forest. Suddenly he slipped, and fell off a cliff. His hand lunged out and he caught himself on an overhanging branch. Regarding his surroundings, he saw another tiger below him, pacing and licking its chops. Above him, the first tiger snarled aggressively. Then, Sayara espied a single, plump berry on a vine dangling next to him. He plucked the berry and ate it. It was delicious.
"I am so fucked.", thought Sayara.
Two little boys were having an argument. The first little boy claimed that his uncle, Ito, the town magistrate, had the power to bring inanimate objects to life. The other little boy disagreed. Just then, who should appear but Ito himself. The first little boy pleaded with his uncle to demonstrate his power. Ito smiled. "I will prove my power by bringing the stone lion which guards the nearby bridge to life.", he said. "But before I do, you two had better return home to say goodbye to your families." "Why?", asked the boys. Ito said, "Because when I wake him, he will be very hungry, and will eat us all." The two boys reconsidered this request, then left Ito to go back to burning bugs with a magnifying glass.
A visitor to the temple asked Hanara to teach him the way of the Buddha. Hanara asked the visitor if he had eaten breakfast yet. The visitor replied that he had. Then said Hanara, "Now go wash out your bowl." And while the visitor was doing just that, Hanara stole his SUV, which was in the guest parking lot.
For thirty days and thirty nights, Irulan, a student of the Buddha, sought to emulate the Bodhisattva himself by sitting under a Bunyan tree to find enlightenment. What the Buddha didn't tell anyone was that he had been sitting under the tree all that time so's to avoid his wife, who wanted him to clean the gutters on the roof or some other spring cleaning bullshit that she always had planned when March came around. Fuck that shit. He was Buddha!
Late one night, as a rising summer wind blew around the temple, two monks faced one another, their faces animated by the flickering candlelight.
"What is the sound of one hand clapping?", asked the first monk. The outside wind rose a bit in intensity, flickering the candles. The second monk pondered for a moment, than leaned across and slapped the first one.
"You are so dead, fucker.", snarled the first monk.
Enlightenment can come in the most unexpected of ways. For instance, one day, several monks were tending the garden next to the temple when Brother Shochu dropped his hoe in shock. The others looked at him in bewilderment.
"What has happened, Shochu?" they cried. "Why do you stop working?"
"Brothers!", cried Shochu. "I have reached enlightenment!"
Just then, all the monks in the garden reached enlightenment, cheering and dancing around in joy.
Then a village idiot showed up, dancing and singing until his pants fell down around his ankles.
"Aha!", he exclaimed. "I have reached enlightenment, as well!"
This made the monks angry, as the idiot had 'harshed their buzz', as the young people say.
So they threw rocks at him until he ran off.
Stupid idiot.
A young monk was summoned to the Hierophant's palace, to instruct one of the Hierophant's consorts in the ways of the Buddha.
When the monk entered the room with the consort, he was struck by her beauty. Her alabaster skin, her lips like plums, her long eyelashes, her shapely neck and bosom. Comporting himself, he started the lesson.
"What is the nature of Satori?", he asked the girl.
She giggled coquettishly.
"I don't know, silly!", she demurred. "I've never satoried!"
"This girl ain't too bright.", thought the monk. "But I'm gonna fuck her anyways."
EXTRA BONUS! THE GREATEST STORY OF ALL TIME!
A long time ago, three monks set out on a journey across the sea to China to travel the Bodhisattva's path. One monk was short and fat, the second was tall and skinny, and the third was of average height and build. Then their boat got caught in a storm, and sank. Then they washed up on shore, all tired and battered and such. Then, I think, a talking raven showed up and said something. So they followed the raven to a cave where an ogre had kidnapped a local princess or something. I don't know, the story was kinda long and meandering. The monks kept digressing about "The right path",and "the nature of man" and stuff. Look, I'll be honest with you, I drifted off towards the end. Some old guy in a diaper told me this on a mountain top in India and he had, like three teeth in his head and he was sort of hard to understand with all his mumbling. So I guess it ended with the monks rescuing the princess and finding the ogre's gold, since, you know, that's how these stories all end, right? He wanted a donation for telling me this story, and I'm like, Hello? If I wanted fairy-tale bullshit, I'd have stayed home and rented "Lord of the Rings", again, am I right? That's not what makes this a great story, though. On the way back to the village I was staying, I picked up this American trust-fund hippy chick, who was travelling through Southeast Asia on Daddy's dime. So we got to talking that night in the local pub, and while I'm yakking away, I notice her nipples are pointing out through her J. Crew sweater. You guessed it, I fucked her like a flapjack later on. That was awesome. I kept the old diaper guy's begging bowl as a souvenir of my Indian adventure. Like he was gonna fight me for it. He was what, 90 pounds soaking wet? Yeah, it's back at my place if you wanna see it. Oh, shit, that's right! It's at my brother's up in Edmonton. I think his dog broke it. We were using it as a Frisbee in his backyard and she snatched it out of the air and ran off with it. Dumb dog. The girl? I think her name was 'Caylee' or 'Kylee' or some dumb 'alternate' spelling nonsense. She gave me her e-mail address but she lives in like, Seattle. So fuck that shit. Still, it was a pretty awesome trip, all in all. You should go. The flight home sucked, though. I had to sit through 'Duce Bigalow: American Gigolo' twice, for the inflight movie, if you can believe it.
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