MD and GEB?

[Rick Vosper]

At 02:33 AM 6/10/97 PDT, you wrote:
>No, it's not. It just happens to contain these same subjects. At the 
>time of it's publishing (or shortly thereafter) I read the book and 
>thought 'Wow!' Obviously I was too young then...

I agree, having much the same experience. Ditto that the stretch to Godel,
Escher, Bach is too far...even for our esteemed TRP.

Saying there is no mention of Mu in the Pali Canon, though, is a little
like saying there's no mention of the Twelve Apostles in the Old
Testament-- more of a time-line problem than anything else. Joshu, of
course, was a Chinese master of the T'ang era; his dates are traditionally
given as 778-897, which pretty much lets him out of the Pali end of things.


>Those topics you refer to are topics that you can find in almost any 
>publication on Zen Buddhism for Western people, because they do appeal 
>to these folks most. You hardly ever find talk about them in Eastern 
>texts and certainly never in the Pali Canon. So, consider them floozies 
>(maybe?).

Not being much of a scholar in Pali (or any other language, come to think
of it), I'm surprised to learn that there is hardly ever talk of Joshu's Mu
in Eastern texts...my understanding is that it's generally the first koan
assigned a practitioner in the Rinzai sect, and one would infer that there
must be commentaries thereon. 

My venerable copy of Phillip Kapleau's _Three Pillars of Zen_ for instance,
translates fairly extensive commentaries from Mumon and Kapleau's own
teacher, Yashutani-Roshi. Yashutani also cites the *Nirvana Sutra* (with
which I'm not familiar) as claiming that "every sentient being" has
Buddha-nature.

Or were you referring more to the kinds of questions GEB deals with than to
any particular aspect of Mu. Buddhahood and whatnot? Perhaps you could tell
us more.

--rick
(who recalls that Shakiyamuni hisself declined to speculate on whether men
had souls, much less dogs)