It is Orals week on the Reed campus. Day after day, hour after hour, senior after senior sits down in a room with three or four faculty to answer questions about their senior projects. Sometimes answers leap to a senior’s lips. Other times there is only stunned silence and puzzlement. Whatever the senior’s response, there is invariably gratitude from the faculty for the effort being made.

Which reminds me of a famous koan taken from a conversation held over a 1000 years ago between a Chinese monk and his zen master:

Blue Cliff Record, Case 14

A monk asked YunMen, “What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?”

YunMen said, “An appropriate response.”

YunMen was the zen master. He was not just toying with the monk. He was trying to help the monk. (As with all koans, contemplation of his response is supposed to hasten awakening.)

During this week of marathon question-and-answer sessions, do I know what is an appropriate response? Do you?

By the way, if you are curious about YunMen, Case 14, zen and koans, listen to a short talk that was given by Barry Magid, the teacher at the Ordinary Mind Zen school in NY City, in 2010. To access the talk save this MP3 link to your computer or go to this list of 2010 Dharma talks and select “Dharma Dog” (the first 20 seconds are silent so don’t give up too quickly; note: the titles ‘Dharma Dog’ and ‘Blue Cliff Record, Case 14: The Teaching of a Lifetime’ appear to be swapped so Dog leads to Case 14 and vice versa).