[Buddha-l] Pure Conversation vs koan

[Franz Metcalf]

Gang,

On Aug 1, 2007, at 9:57 AM, Richard Hayes wrote:

> On Tuesday 31 July 2007 08:57, curt wrote:
>> Wong Weng Fai wrote:
>>> Yup. "Qing" is the character for "pure" and "tan" is the character 
>>> for
>>> "conversation". I believe it is suppose to mean "a conversation pure
>>> of worldly concerns." The world, dust etc. being characterized as
>>> pollutants.
>>
>> Nice! That makes it sound even more "zenny". That wasn't what I was
>> expecting "pure" to mean!
>
> It sounds "zenny" only because it sounds so traditionally Buddhist. I 
> can
> easily imagine almost any Buddhist of any tradition interpreting 
> "pure" in
> that way.

I agree qing tan does sound "traditionally Buddhist." In fact, it 
brings to mind the verse contest of Shenxiu and Huineng in the Platform 
Sutra. From that perspective, such purity is the opposite of "zenny," 
since the orthodox Zen position is that there is no 
mirror/self/conversation and so no way for dust to pollute it. I'm 
continually fascinated by how all our thinking, all our effort to move 
things forward, brings us back to fundamental problems we never solve.

Franz Metcalf