Welcome to another episode of the Secular Buddhism Podcast.

This is episode number 119. I am your host Noah Rochetta.

And today I'm going to talk about endings and beginnings.

Keep in mind you don't need to use what you learned from Buddhism to be a Buddhist.

You can use this to learn to be a better whatever you already are.

Let's start out by talking about the Zen Kowan I shared in the last podcast episode.

This was the Kowan called No Water No Moon. As a reminder, this is how the Kowan goes.

When the Nan Chiyono studied Zen under Buko of Engaku, she was unable to attain

the fruits of meditation for a long time. At last, one moonlit night, she was carrying water in

an old pail bound with bamboo. The bamboo broke and the bottom fell out of the pail,

and at that moment, Chiyono was set free. In commemoration, she wrote a poem.

In this way and that, I tried to save the old pail. Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about

to break until at last the bottom fell out. No more water in the pail, no more moon in the water.

This is another fun Kowan that I like to visualize what this experience was like for Chiyono, the Nan.

Bodidharma, who is the first patriarch of Zen, considered to be the founder of Zen in China,

is purported to have said that Zen is a special teaching outside of the scriptures,

beyond words, beyond letters pointing to the mind, seeing directly into one's true nature.

And to me, this Kowan, like all the other Kowans, seems to be an invitation to look in. It's something

beyond words, beyond the letters that you would find in teachings, and is trying to get us to learn

something about ourselves. My initial attraction to Buddhism fell along these lines of something

looking somewhat of the transition of looking outside of ourselves for something to looking inside.

And if you'll recall, I think I've mentioned it in a podcast episode before that, you know, up until

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