The Case: Master Kyogen said, “It’s like a man up a tree, hanging from a branch by his mouth; his hands cannot grasp a branch, his feet won’t reach a bough. Suppose there is another man under the tree who asks him, ‘What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the west?’ If he does not respond, he goes against the wish of the questioner. If he answers, he will lose his life. At such a time, how should he respond?”
As I sit down this morning to prepare this teaching, I feel a tension. The world is burning–literally and metaphorically. People are frightened, angry, and confused. So it might seem like a luxury to wax poetically about a 12th century Chinese koan about a man hanging from a tree by his teeth. Yet, I am continually surprised to find these old stories still speak to me today. Perhaps this is because they don’t offer an escape from my difficulties, but a way in and through them. They teach me how to meet my troubles that honors the complexity of myself and the world I find myself living in.
In this koan, Kyogen is presented with an impossible situation. Below him someone asks the question “What is the meaning of Bodhidharma’s coming from the west?”–which is a stock question in the Zen tradition, shorthand for “What is the fundamental truth of Zen?”
Notice that the koan doesn’t ask which choice is correct. It doesn’t ask what words the man should say. It asks: “At such a time, how should he respond?”
This is the beauty of koans. Like life, they present problems with no easy or clear solutions. They don’t frame the situation that reifies our binary habits of right and wrong. They are not dualistic in that way. If the story appears to be a choice between one thing or another, it’s never “or”, but “and”. It defies our conceptual minds tendency to black and white, linear thinking.
So, as a Zen practitioner you are asked to sit with the story, chew it, digest it. The story presents unreconcilable problems, inconsistencies, paradoxes, and contradictions. But if you persist with courage and patience, I think you will find koans to be a great gift that honors something fundamental and important about your humanity.
Zen is not a quick fix. It reveals the gifts of life slowly to those who are willing to be alone with themselves in silence and stillness. It’s no longer hypothetical. You ARE the man/woman hanging from the branch of the tree. How will you respond?
© 2025, Roshi Robert Joshin Althouse