Today's spam haiku:
Loophole delivery:
Some raindrop, not a chipmunk,
Leaves the chess bosom.

After a fruitless day of shopping for media cabinets at Atlantic Station and Huff Road, I attended the evening service at the zen center. Once again, Friday night attendance was low - only the roshi and I started the service, but soon two more dropped in. We sat for two 45-minute periods (90 minutes of enlightenment) and no chattering delusion afterwards.

Seung Sahn once wrote:
Buddha said that all things have Buddha-nature.
Joshu said the dog has no Buddha-nature.
Which one is correct?
If you open your mouth, you fall into hell.
Clouds float up to the sky.
Rain falls down to the ground.

The word "prognosis" derives from the Greek gnosis, literally "knowledge." "Prognosis," then is before (pro-, or pre-) knowledge, or the wisdom that comes before knowledge. When all thinking has been cut off, the mind becomes empty and the thinker, with no thought or conception of self, becomes empty mind. Yet even with all thinking cut off, there is still awareness and consciousness, as well as the intuitive wisdom the comes before thinking (prognosis).

The before-thinking mind - your before-thinking mind, my before-thinking mind, all people's before-thinking minds - are the same. This is our substance. Your substance, my substance, and the substance of the whole universe become one. So the clouds, the sky, the rain and the ground all become one. So the question is: are the clouds, sky, rain and ground all the same as you, or are they different? Do all things have Buddha-nature as the Buddha stated, or not (Joshu's refutation)?

If you say "the same," you are totally wrong and fall into hell. If you say "different," you are equally wrong and hell-bound.

The prognostic mind that becomes one with the universe is before thinking. Before thinking, there are no words. "Same" and "different" are opposite words; they are from the thinking mind that separates all things. The before-thinking mind does not recognize such dualities. Trying to use the thinking mind to resolve the discrepancy just takes you further and further from the truth; thus it is said that you descend into "hell."

So what would be a good answer? Seung Sahn supplies one by noting "Clouds float up to the sky. Rain falls down to the ground." This is not the non-sequitur it appears at first to be. He is merely recognizing that what is, is, and uses a very good example - on close examination, can the clouds really be separated from the sky, can the rain really be separate from the clouds, is there really a difference between the rain in the sky and the rain on the ground, and is there a clear distinction between the rain-soaked earth and the dry ground? The thinking mind can come up with differences and clever answers, but the prognostic, before-thinking mind does not bother.

So all words, all language, come from the thinking mind. Therefore they cannot express the real substance of the before-thinking mind. In this regard, the spam haikus make as much sense as any other words. That is why I say that our dharma talks, the sutras, these very words, are all delusion. They are all just fingers pointing at the moon.