The Koan for March
The Adventures of Yu Daopo
Yu Daopo lived in Jinling. She worked in the market square making sweet rice cakes. The Zen teacher Langye Huije tasted them at her shop. He gave her the saying of the Old Master Linji: There is a no-position genuine person.
One day she heard a beggar singing the Lotus Sutra. He said, "if you haven’t heard the story of Liu Yi, how can you find your way to Lake Dongting?” Suddenly she understood. She threw her rice cake pan onto the ground. Her husband scowled and said, “You are wicked!” Daopo responded, “This is not your realm.”
She returned to see Langye where he was giving a talk at his temple. He said, “Is anyone here a no-position genuine person?” She immediately answered, “There’s a no-position genuine person with six arms and three heads, working furiously, splitting Flower Mountain in two with a single blow. For ten thousand years the swiftly flowing water didn’t know it was Spring. Eminent teachers, so sharp and quick, have lost it beneath the dark forest of their learning”
Later she became a famous teacher and when masters and students came to her for her teachings, she called them all “son”
Yu Daopo lived during the Song Dynasty in China, born around the year 1000. Yu was her family name and her teaching name was Daopo which means "Old Lady/Grandma/Hag of the Tao".
Lead Teacher
Rachel Boughton
Rachel Boughton is a Zen Roshi. She's a feminist, artist, writer, and meditation and koan teacher. She is also a Jungian Analyst in training.
Newsletter
We send a newsletter for every first, third and fifth (when there is one) week. It shows what we're doing, and has poetry and pictures and some writing about the koan, and life, and what's going on in the world.
Support Us
Practice is its own reward, but money is encouraging. This is a field that traditionally relies on donations and that tradition works when everyone gives what they can. If you like what we do, please make a donation
