this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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Teaching the Ultimate (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/buddhism
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In early times in Japan, bamboo-and-paper lanterns were used with candles inside. A blind man, visiting a friend one night, was offered a lantern to carry home with him.

"I do not need a lantern," he said. "Darkness or light is all the same to me."

"I know you do not need a lantern to find your way," his friend replied, "but if you don't have one, someone else may run into you. So you must take it."

The blind man started off with the lantern and before he had walked very far someone ran squarely into him.

"Look out where you are going!" he exclaimed to the stranger. "Can't you see this lantern?"

"Your candle has burned out, brother," replied the stranger.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thank you for sharing your very-well expressed thoughts - yes, I also see the lantern as something we carry that is of benefit to others but not necessarily to ourselves (but it turns out that it's pointless to carry it around anyway). I also see the declaration of "Can't you see this lantern?" sounding like "Don't you know who I am?" as the lantern could represent our ego and the delusions we carry around about our self-importance. Your second idea - that there's no point trying to avoid the inevitable collisions with others - seems to fit well with that thought also.

The suggestion that the blind guy is perhaps the only one in the story who is seeing things clearly seems like a theme to me as well.

Thank you again for contributing your insights on the koan. These koans are very well known and there are doubtless multiple interpretations and commentaries about them available, but I deliberately don't seek them out beyond the original texts - for me, trying to understand and discuss them cold within the context of our own experiences is most interesting.