'You cannot find here.' HERE … That’s it! ' At these words Banzan became enlightened.' He got it! He woke up. 'You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.”įirst this koan draws us (and Banyan) into the world of duality with the word BEST.Įverything is best! How could that be? Now great doubt enters. (1) Beth and I married in the summer of 1968 (2) my active duty turned out to be only one year, (3) all at NAS Alameda and (4) I received the GI Bill which helped pay for the remainder of college. Not good.Īs it turned out, being recalled turn out to be one of the best things. I was raising my grade point average, obviously college was the BEST thing for me, and I had just met this girl named Beth…and … My reserve unit was recalled to active duty! Bummer. I was just 25 at the time, now going to Humboldt State College. This became known as the Pueblo Incident. In January of 1968 the North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo. It meant only 6 months of active duty, one weekend each month for 5 years, and two weeks each summer. With the Viet Nam War going on, I joined the Naval Air Reserves instead of the possibility of being drafted. When I was 19 years old, having less than stellar grades at Colorado State, they requested that I not return the following year. Can we ever really know what is best? Can anything actually be the best? Maybe he’s onto something here?īut if I’m the customer, how do I know for sure I’m getting the best? There’s that little nagging doubt. Using his butcher skills, he could choose each next best piece of meat. …until finally there is only one piece of meat left but it, too would be the best piece available. The best chicken thigh – he’d pick the best chicken thigh.I’d like a T-bone – he’d pick the best T-bone.

What if, to every customer, the butcher picked out the best piece of meat available…. He wouldn’t say this flank steak is best but those short ribs aren’t so good.įrom the butcher's perspective, everything could be the best. EVERYTHING? How could everything in his shop be the best? A sales gimmick, right? He wants to sell all his meat that day. “Everything in my shop is the best,” replied the butcher. This is what we do when BEST enters the mind probably beginning with the caveman looking for the best club or the cavewoman looking for the best grinding stone. Now my D300 doesn’t seem to be the best anymore. That is, until Jim recently bought a Nikon D7100. Since 2008, we’ve been very pleased with the Nikon D300. No longer did he see the Casio as the best.īut when it comes to our large SLR cameras, Jim and I agree that Nikon is the best. Later on, Jim liked what he saw in my little Canon camera and bought the latest version, the SD 800. A few years ago just before we began doing this, Jim had a very capable compact Casio camera. We usually carry our small cameras everywhere. My friend Jim and I talk camera stuff a lot. I can picture him whispering under his breath, “Oh do I love pork chops…they are the best cut.” And he might go on thinking how he hates liver. Isn’t this a perfect setup for suffering? “Give me the best piece of meat you have,” he asks.

Why? The Second Noble Truth tells us why - Suffering is caused by craving, our attachments… Perhaps you’ve heard of the First Noble Truth = Suffering. You cannot find here any piece of meat that is not the best.”Īt these words Banzan became enlightened.

“Give me the best piece of meat you have,” said the customer. When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer. What follows here is pretty much what I plan to say on Monday. As I began preparing for this, I had a different koan in mind then it came to me that the koan we used on '12 & Zen' Friday might be the best one to use. Early in August, I was asked to sit 'up front' this Monday and give the evening talk.

Best zen koans