![]() ![]() So let’s look some more at these Christian koans, as I’ll call them. some of parables are not stories, many are not agreeable most are complex and a good percentage of them produce more confusion than understanding.” ‘Oh, yes,’ they say, ‘and a wonderful teaching device it is, too. Most people, on reading the Gospels’ assertion that ‘Jesus spoke in parables,’ assume they know exactly what is meant. Author Robert Farrar Capon writes, “The first and most troublesome, oddly enough, is familiarity. One benefit of using this Buddhist lens is that through it, these old and familiar sayings can become new to us again. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain but if it dies, it bears much fruit.Here are a couple examples from today’s Gospel reading: Because once you start looking at them in this way, many of Jesus’ statements fit the classic definition of a Zen koan, and I think we can pick up some useful clues from our Buddhist brothers and sisters in interpreting them. But I don’t think it’s wrong to view some of the more enigmatic sayings of Jesus through a Buddhist lens. Now I realize it’s probably sacrilegious to equate Jesus with The Dude in the Big Lebowski. You don’t really know where they will settle or how they might flip a once tightly held belief.” Koans don’t just come in through the front door and sit at the kitchen table, they seep into the structural integrity of the home we have built-our identity or ego. “Koans aren’t just puzzles that your mind figures out suddenly and proclaims, “Aha! the answer is three!” Instead, they wait for you to open enough to allow the space necessary for them to enter into your depths-the inner regions beyond knowing. That’s the point, in fact.īuddhist teacher Don Dianda describes koans this way: Then the master roared, “DROP IT!” The young monk stammered, “But… I have nothing more to drop.” The master smiles, then says, “Then take it away.” (Image from Wikimedia Commons) The monk let go of the second pot, gently. A young monk brought two potted plants into the monastery’s garden while the Zen master looked on. When you can do nothing, what can you do?Īnd here’s a koan in story form.What is the sound of one hand clapping?.Koans can’t be solved like an ordinary puzzle, because they interact with something deeper than the mind. Let me first tell you a little more about koans in Zen. And I realized that sometimes with Jesus, it’s best not to rely on your rational mind too much. That’s because in the Gospel reading for today, it sure sounds like Jesus is using koans. But once I actually started thinking about what I was going to say this morning, I realized that the Big Lebowski provided some clues. One article led to another, all of which were great time wasters when I should have been working on this sermon. This month marks the 20 th anniversary of the release of the Big Lebowski, and so once I started reading about it on the Internet, it was hard to stop. And the Dude is a kind of Zen master in the rough (who likes to drink a cocktail called a White Russian, as you know if you’ve seen the movie). ![]() So a movie filled with absurdities turns out to have a lot to say about the nature of reality. They have to be approached in a different way. Your intellect alone isn’t enough to understand a koan. ![]() A koan a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used to try to jolt the mind out of its normal logical reasoning. That’s because in Zen Buddhism, a koan is one of the most important teaching tools. Only when Buddhists refer to the two of them, their names aren’t spelled Coen, C-o-e-n, but rather koan, k-o-a-n. And there’s also the name of the movie’s producers: the Coen Brothers. And there is a lot of swearing.īut the Big Lebowski has become an unlikely Buddhist classic thanks in large part to the Zen-like musings of its main character, The Dude. There’s a lot of bowling in it-and not just ordinary bowling, but competitive bowling. The hero of the movie is an unemployed stoner known as The Dude, played by Jeff Bridges. It’s a comedy about mistaken identities involving underworld gangsters. Now if you’ve seen the Big Lebowski, you’re probably wondering what in the world makes it a Buddhist film. I was delighted to see one of my favorite films on the list: the Big Lebowski. Not long ago, a Buddhist magazine asked ten leading people in the film industry to list their favorite movies with Buddhist themes. (Sermon by Lori Erickson at New Song Episcopal Church in Coralville, Iowa on March 18, 2018) ![]()
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