Old Ghosts and Living a Life of Grace -- teisho on the Fox Koan

Recorded October 25, 2025.Thoughts, actions, understandings, perceptions, realizations that had once seemed good enough, may in time, no longer be sufficient. We outgrow them. Then ghostlike, they can return and haunt us. But maybe they return, not to block our way, but to give us another chance. If so, their appearance may not be reason for disappointment, but our opportunity to mature further. So let’s look again at “Master Pai-Chang and the Fox," koan case 2 of The Gatelesss Barrier. Seen in a our current upcoming Halloween light, it becomes a shape-shifting encounter of there and back again. But — the journey has a point. Wu-men’s commentary on the case concludes — “If you have the single eye of realization, you will appreciate how the former head of the monastery enjoyed 500 lives of grace as a fox.” What is it to enjoy a life of grace? What is a life of grace? And how can daily Zen practice help us find this out for ourselves?Calligraphy -- Fox and Lives of Grace by Rafe Jnan MartinBooks mentioned:The Gateless Barrier by Robert AitkenThe Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment by Roshi Philip Kapleau"The Sixth Patriarch's Platform Sutra" (various editions)Books by Roshi Rafe MartinTalks on YouTubeMore information at endlesspathzen.org