Is Every Day REALLY Good?
01/10/2024, Anshi Zachary Smith, dharma talk at City Center. In this talk, from Beginner's Mind Temple, Zachary discusses an often-used koan (teaching story): Yúnmén’s “Every day is a good day.” Zen, a Mahayana Buddhist school that theoretically eschews lists, dualities, categories of experience and other conceptual forms on the grounds that they’re empty, is nonetheless swimming in them. We’ll examine Case 6 of the Blue Cliff Record, in which Yúnmén, unquestionably one of the great Chán masters of the Táng Dynasty, employs such a device, and try to divine what he could possibly have been doing.
