October, Step 10 and this koan...

Dear Friends,

Here is the Step and koan we'll be sitting with in October.

Bill K.

Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.


Koan:  Shortened version from Shangu’s Sweet-Olive Blossoms, #18, Entangling Vines

One day the poet Shangu was visiting Huitang Zuxin.  Huitang said, “You know the passage in which Confucius says, ‘My friends, do you think I’m hiding things from you?  In fact, I am hiding nothing from you.’ It’s just the same with the Great Matter of Zen.  Do you understand this?”

“I don’t understand,” Shangru replied.”

Later, Huitang and Shangu were walking in the mountains where the air was filled with the scent of the sweet-olive blossoms.  Huitang asked, “ Do you smell the fragrance of the blossoms?”

Shangu said, “I do.”

Huitang said, “You see, I’m hiding nothing from you.”