A Koan Catalogue Poem by Desmond Kon

A new catalogue has arrived. It sells everything in even numbers
from hampers to visors to worry stones. Da-Ren moves
his thumb across the face of the angel carved into his jadeite piece.
That was a birthday present from the curator with the cellist.
Da-Ren wrote him a masnavi in return, about a mythic river
that had dried up into a periglacial lake. It’s now retrofitted,
a parking lot, where the maroon and mango-yellow Volvo resides.
“It comes in other colours, ” Da-Ren recalls the other cellist saying,
afraid the chess master wouldn’t like the brown-tinged green.
But Da-Ren sees the tree of life in it like a forest in India
and all the bloodstone it can afford, the martyrs within forgotten.
“Take this Caravaggio and follow the splash zone, ” Da-Ren says.
“Reach the foot of the water-logged mountain in Montenegro,
and there, a box poem at page bottom, left and right of centre.”



Author's Note:

This poem's earlier version was one installment within a chapbook sequence chosen by Mary Jo Bang as one of six finalists in the Noemi Press Poetry Chapbook Award. The poem is the premise of a hand-sewn 'Da-Ren' Kelu, a soft sculpture created by plush artist Nana Pong of Roomism. 'Da-Ren' Kelu was given its own micro e-chapbook at Roomism with its own backstory: 'This fruitarian microbat lives in the Tree of Life, and only leaves its roost on the first full moon of every leap year. Little more is known of this mythical-mystical bat. On its last sighting, tourists said it now has the tree emblazoned on its tiny lips, in criss-crossing band-aids, as if to offer an eternal apology for its self-imposed seclusion. Sometimes, it manages to speak. When that happens, the utterance sounds something like 'différance' in soft and cooing echoes.' Other limited edition items based on the character including a pouch, badge, and handmade silver chain have been created, to be exhibited at Fab Fibe Show 2009, an exhibition that brings together showpieces of fabric and paper artists from around the world.

Koans are statements made by Zen Masters, often in response to questions about the teachings themselves. As mentioned in Zenkei Shibayama’s Zen Comments on the Mumonkan (New York: Harper & Row,1974) , novice monks in Rinzai use koans as objects of meditation to overcome dualism while the Soto school studies koans in reference to one’s own life and training. “Koans serve both to teach and to test the aspirant, ” Koller and Koller state. “As teaching devices, koans are used to lead a person beyond intellectual constructions to the direct and immediate participation in the living, whole and complete reality. Used as a test, they reveal whether or not the zazen efforts have succeeded in reaching a given level of concentration and enlightenment.”

In the book, The Silent Dialogue: Zen Letters to a Trappist Abbot (New York: Continuum,1996) , David G. Hackett’s 12 October 1974 journal entry makes note of his meeting with Hirata Roshi, Abbot of Tenryu-ji Temple in northern Kyoto. It seems, all those years ago, the discussion was couched in a general pessimism regarding the impact of Zazen and Christianity on each other. Hackett poignantly quoted Heinrich Dumoulin then in saying that “the dialogue can only fruitfully begin on a spiritual plane”, that “there can be no doubt about the common ground of all religions, but it cannot be grasped in words”.

In the book, For the Sake of the World: The Spirit of Buddhist and Christian Monasticism (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press,1989) , Patrick G. Henry and Donald K. Swearer offer a story on Thich Nhat Nanh, citing James Forest of the Catholic Peace Fellowship, about the way Nhat Hanh responded to the scorn of a man during his 1968 United States tour: “Then Nhat Hanh began to speak – quietly, with deep calm and a sense of personal caring for the man who had just attacked him. The words seemed like rain falling on fire: 'If you want the tree to grow, ' he said, 'it won’t help to water the leaves. You have to water the roots….' Nhat Hanh stood on the sidewalk struggling for air…. He had wanted to respond with anger so he made himself breathe deeply and slowly in order to find a way to respond calmly and with understanding. But the breathing had been too slow and deep, and he had to excuse himself in order to restore normal respiration. For the first time Forest realized there is a connection between the way one breathes and the way one responds to the world.”

“It takes two eyes to perceive three dimensions, ” Henry and Swearer mention later. “But as what we see becomes more rounded, the mystery becomes even more tantalizing.” In discussing how discourse between Buddhist and Christian monks and nuns about difference interestingly unveils their “undeniable and inexpressible unity”, the authors highlight a project in interreligious understanding titled ‘Dialogue of Silence’. They write: “Our own work on the comparative study in this book has brought us time and again, and finally, up against the truth in a couplet by Robert Frost: ‘We dance round in a ring and suppose, / But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.’ ”