Zen

[miyamoto]

singlestacks answer i think is right on the mark.

[SiG Lady]

Overheard question: "How often do you shoot...?"

Overheard answer: "Now and zen."

[BamBam]

Hey Pat - when sitting and breathing you might also try and notice the point when inhale changes to exhale.  It is a fleeting moment, lightening fast, when the air reverses direction.  It is so fast that you can hardly grasp the event.  It has been said that Zen exists at that precise moment.

[Duane Thomas]

miyamoto,

Uh....no.

[InTheBlack]

Drop the whole chicken.

[SiG Lady]

Try http://www.rdfrantz.com/rdf/shootingsports/nsr_articles/

More GunZen on this one than you can handle in one night.

[miyamoto]

duane,

"uh...no"

then again, i could be wrong.

i welcome it...it is good for you.

so then, you can come off of high and preach to the proles what your book tells you to recite. ;-)

rinzai type koan's never did it for me.

even worse is the struggle at egotistical intellection...;-)

will s.

[benos]

"Drop the whole chicken."

lol!

Egg drops -

Splat!

Is that bad?

Not if it's in a (deep-walled) frying pan.

b

[Shooter Grrl]

Having just polished off a fried egg sandwich for breakfast - i can relate to Brian's frying pan!

However, I think the answer is:  Cook it first - fried egg from 3 feet won't break (especially if I attempted to fry it )

[Duane Thomas]

No, it's a raw egg.

miyamoto, I'm not trying to come across like some sun source of knowledge, and I apologize if I do. It's just the answer to the riddle is very cool. And it's not really "trick" when you think about it. Though I'll be the first to admit I probably never would have figured it out.

[Shooter Grrl]

So tell us already

[Rich Bagoly]

Jump down 3 feet and take the egg with you.  

That can't be it.....

Eat the egg, and fall down....

Get a friend to take his shoe off with you, drop the egg on your feet.  The egg won't break them.

Perhaps the moral is that if you drop the egg, it will break,  same as if you leave your horse and cart, you will no longer have them.

[Rich Bagoly]

Other possibilities.

Drop the egg.  It does not care, it exists to make the journey for you.    It does not "break", it is only scrambled.  This transformation comes by your will.                 The monk is only a passenger.  He gives the driver direction.  Without direction, the motorcycle is motionless.  It may as well be broken.

[miyamoto]

"eat the egg and fall down"

now that is funny!

don't worry duane, i was only funnin with ya.

i did (do) not mean anything by what i say.  ?

will s.

[SiG Lady]

...and if you're allergic to eggs you do nothing.

"Where Zen ends, ass-kicking begins." --Stephen Hyde, That 70's Show

[Duane Thomas]

Actually, Rich, one of your guesses is on the right track.

[Rich Bagoly]

The last one, Right?     I was up way past my bedtime.

I was going to add this one today;  Drop the egg 4 feet.  The first 3 will be damage free.

Just got another one; Tie a string around the egg, and roll it up like a yo-yo.  What goes down, must come up.

The one about leaving the cart made the most sense to me.  I figured when he got home, the monk would say he traded the horse for a handfull of magic beans.

[Duane Thomas]

"I was going to add this one today;  Drop the egg 4 feet.  The first 3 will be damage free."

AND WE HAVE A WINNER!!

Yes, drop the egg four feet. It's still unbroken when it's dropped three feet. The lesson here is that it's not the journey itself that's important, but that you enjoy the journey.  It's not how the journey ends, but the journey itself. Which explains why it wasn't important to the monk that the motorcycle ride was simply retracing its previous track - he was just thoroughly enjoying the ride, where it ended didn't matter to him in the slightest. On a deeper level, the message is not to be afraid of death. It's going to happen....so don't worry about it, just enjoy each precious moment of life while you're alive, no matter what awaits at the end.

(Edited by Duane Thomas at 3:26 pm on Sep. 28, 2002)