a koan answered?

[Phillip P. Muth]

According to Rick Vosper:
> 
> At 08:27 PM 7/9/97 -0300, you wrote:
> 
> >A nice post, Will; very nice indeed.
> >Vaska
> >
> >At 05:33 PM 7/9/97 W. Karlin wrote:
> >
> >>  to wit:  on p. 22 L.E.D. relates the koan in which a student asks
> >>"whether a Dog hath the nature of the divine Buddha."  The master answers
> >>with a single word: "mu."  
> >>
> >>  Later on p. 61 the phrase "assigning to every Looking-Glass a
> >>Coefficient of Mercy,-- term it u,--..."  Actually, that "u" is the greek
> >>character "mu" (can't do the real symbol).  
> >>  The answer to the koan is mercy.  The question whether the dog hath the
> >>nature of the divine buddha (and hence deserving the respect we *should*
> >>afford our fellow man) is not the right question. I think the real
> >>question,-- how do we treat the dog without knowing whether it hath the
> >>NDB?,-- is answered...we show it mercy.  (Which may mean that the Dog
> >>hath the NDB.)
> >>
> >>  Goes along with the "soul in every stone", I think.
> 
> Nice, try, but no pickle, sorry. Please consider the following:
> 
> 1: The pun is weak (even by Pynchonian standards).The Mu of the zen koan is
> generally transcribed "muh"; the greek Mu is pronounced "myu", and stands
> for, well, any number of things; angstroms coming most easily to mind.
> 
> 2: Pynchon knows his koans well enough to know that "mercy" is *not* the
> "answer" to Josho's Mu (about dogs and Buddha-nature). This is evidenced by
> his "correct" answer to the famous "one hand" koan elsewhere in the Canon
> (I thought this was in GR, but have been unable to find it therein; perhaps
> another P-Lister can assist me?) and by his knowledge of published
> "answers" elsewhere in Buddhist literature.
> 
> 3: My own interpretation is that a dog/Buddha-nature koan as posed by the
> LED is simply too wonderful an opportunity to pass up, and its relation to
> other parts of M&D, sadly, is minimal.
> 
> Other ideas?
> 
> --rick
> 
A look at page 5 of Barthes Empire of Signs reproduces 
 the character mu,
which is translated as emptiness.  On the facing page you can
find this:

Writing is after all, in its way, a satori:  satori (the Zen
occurence) is a more or less powerful (though in no way formal)
seism which causes knowledge, or the subject, to vacillate:  it
creates an emptiness of language.  And it is also an emptiness
of language which constitutes writing; it is from this
emptiness that derive the features with which Zen, in the
exemption from all meaning, writes gardens, gestures, houses,
flower arrangements, faces, violence. (p.4)

Parke Muth