Joshu’s “Wash Your Bowls” (Case 7 in the Mumonkan) May 18, 2023

Scott Thornton brings out the gentle luminosity in Joshu’s Zen of a few words. At one level the koan’s injunction seems straightforward enough: have you eaten (tasted awakening)? Then wash your bowls (forget it, let it go, wipe it away). But in Joshu’s kind-hearted invitation into a way of being as unstinting as falling in love - falling in love from morning to night in all directions! - he isn’t instructing the monk to wipe away, to empty. He’s freely sharing the living fact of this wiping-away.
In that same spirit of earnestness and fulfillment, Scott asks: why does everyone make such a big deal about “form and emptiness?” Well in short, because it’s liberating. “Go for a walk and tell me one thing you see that isn’t Buddha.”
Come for Joshu, stay for Scott’s Henry Shukman impression.
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