The Fireplace Records (Text Version). By Michael P. Garofalo.

Preface: In 2023, I began rereading, studying, and indexing the many collections of Chan/Zen Buddhist Koans in my home library. After reading and thinking about over two thousands of these question and answer koan dialogues, I began writing brief commentaries and sharing in my Cloud Hands Blog. I found the task energizing and challenging for an old fellow. I am a philosopher, not a Buddhist; so, readers are forewarned. Here goes ...

"A poem, novel, or play that does not in some sense relate to previous texts is, in fact, literally unimaginable. The author of such a text would have to invent everything. It would be like inventing a new language from scratch, without any reliance on already existing languages. In this sense, intertextuality (the displacement of origins to other texts, which are in turn displacements of other texts and so on --- in other words, an undoing of the very idea of pure or straightforward origins) is fundamental to the institution of literature. No text makes sense without other texts. Every text is a new tissue of past citations."
- Andrew Bennett and Nicholas Royle, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, 2016

Chapter 1: Can You Grasp Emptiness?
Chapter 2: What Transcends Lao Tzu?
Chapter 3: Why Did the Bodhidharma Walk So Far From Home?
Chapter 4: Harvesting Some Onions From Our Garden
Chapter 5: Shifu Miao Zhang Grasped the Master's Cane
Chapter 6: Yunmen's Cane Turned Into a Dragon and Swallowed the Universe
Chapter 7: The Teacher Mentors His Students
Chapter 8: Who Gathers and Chops Firewood for the Cook's Kitchen?
Chapter 9: Meeting Chang San-Feng on Mount Shasta
Chapter 10: Three Requirements for the Study of Zen
Chapter 11: Give Up Learning
Chapter 12: Falling on Deaf Ears
Chapter 13: How Could He Make Up His Mind
Chapter 14: Bill Asked "Did Freya's Puppy Have Buddha Natue?
Chapter 15: Uncle Mike's "Dangling Dichotomies"
Chapter 16: Prajnatara's "It's the Attitude that Counts"
Chapter 17: Yaoshan's "For the Time Being"
Chapter 18: Sozan's "Flowers or Seeds?"
Chapter 19: The Roshi's Clapping Cellphone
Chapter 20: Fred's Magic Strings
Chapter 21: Shifu Miao Zhang's "Gradual Enlightenment"
Chapter 22: Suzuki Walks in the Fog
Chapter 23: Belushi Says "Enought is Not Enough"
Chapter 24: Shifu Miao Zhang asked "When You Meet the Black Dragon, What Will You Say"
Chapter 25: Simple As: 0123456789 ...
Chapter 26: Assumptions Guide the Way
Chapter 27: When Was Chaos Born?
Chapter 28: Chang San-Feng Remembers Mount Adams
Chapter 29: Emptiness Is "A" Form
Chapter 30: Scholar Eagle Asks Questions About The Heart Sutra
Chapter 31: God's Own Eye
Chapter 32: Skeleton's Don't Stand Up
Chapter 33: Don't Do Unto Others
Chapter 34: Swimming in the Same River
Chaoter 35: My Original Face: Before and After

I hope to find a publisher for a paperback version of Book 1 (50 Chapters), or sell all 150 Chapters in self-published E-Book versions (Books 1-3).

I was mulling over the famous Koan from the Sixth Patriarch, Hui-Neng, "What was your original face before you were born?" This question appears in many Zen Koans.

The Mind Door that opened and closed between the inside of After Awakening and the outside of Before Awakening, hung on the hinges of efforts and insights. The Gate swung open and closed, mostly closed but sometimes open, as daily life offered opportunities. Being unborn or reborn swung on the hinges of opportunities with Others.

The terms "inside and outside,' or 'before and after,' were flexible, relative, ambiguous, often changing meaning, tools, open, moving, freely applied.

Before I was born, my original face was six-fold--- the faces of my parents and four grandparents.

Before I was born, my original face was a thousand-fold--- the faces of all my previous Karmic lives for kalpas of time.

Before I was born, my original face was in water and I was only fleeting feelings.

Before I was reborn, my face was the same face as the dead still-born baby on the table of the morgue.

Before I was reborn, I never thought about or remembered what my original face appeared as.

Before I was reborn, I worried about the appearance of my face, and disliked my acne.

Before I was reborn, I was chained in a dark cave, hidden from the true Forms, awaiting release and the light. Only Plato's face was my face.

After I was born, my face was reflected four-fold in the distorting mirrors of a San Francisco amusement park.

After I was born, my original face was big, round, homely, with all parts intact--- a loved infant's face.

After I was born, my primary face once had two black eyes and a broken nose from a fist fight in Bandini, East LA.

After I was born, my face changed every decade, and my original face disappeared. My Primary Face remained the same.

After I was reborn, an Original Face appeared to me immediately, but I did not recognize it.

After I was reborn, I paused trying to answer Koan Riddles and laughed at all the clever answers.

Scholar Eagle asked Professor Coyote "The Heart Sutra says that, " 'Form Does not Differ From the Void, And the Void Does Not Differ From Form. Form is Void and Void is Form.' Is this true?"

Professor Coyote said, "Did I not discuss this question yesterday? The Heart Sutra says that Profound Insight is a Supreme Spell, a magical incantation. Why concern yourself with spells?

Scholar Eagle said, "But reaching the supreme understanding will remove all obstructions, fears, and confused imagination. Can't you help me understand that Supreme Enlightenment?"

Professor Coyote said, "If you could even attain non-attainment, and if all your perceptions and consciousness were empty, and nothing could be made of nothing, then I don't believe you would need Supreme Enlightenment. Why do you reach for the comet, and ignore the smell of the wet earth? Just be here and now, and have a cup of tea."

Professor Coyote said, "So be it! Even Sutras are often less useful to real wisdom and clear understanding. Listen, I'm sorry, but I am nauseated today and don't feel like answering metaphysical questions. Go ask Raven Roshi."

Scholar Eagle then went and asked Raven Roshi the same questions about emptiness.

"The moon shines brightly in the empty sky.
The bucket bottom broke and all the water emptied out.
I wrote the characters for 'True" and "False' on an empty page.
I have nothing more to say, nothing!"

Raven Roshi then paused, then laughed. He told Scholar Eagle to go ask Reverend Toad the same questions.

Reverend Toad said, "Croak! Croak! Empty Nonsense! Your soul will live for all eternity. You might be reborn as a old woman with Alzheimer's disease and think about and remember nothing; or, find yourself as a young beautiful woman arguing with two obnoxious ugly men in Sartre's Hell; or, sing with the Angels in the blissful Afterworld's Choir; or, be reborn as a croaking toad, like me. Much more interesting than being dissolved into nothingness."

Reverend Toad than smacked Scholar Eagle three times on his back with a dirty wash rag. He laughed and said, Go ask Badger Nerdy the same questions.

Scholar Eagle gave up, stopped asking questions, went home, and brewed some tea. It was refreshing! The cup warmed his hands. The steamy tea tickled his nostrils. That afternoon, he drank all the tea, until the small kettle was completely empty (except for wet tea leaves).

If Forms are Empty, Idealism is sadly triumphant.
There is nothing to concern yourself about Nothing.
When nothing is left, there is no more You.
Fret less about ideas, and feel more.
Leave such puzzles for bored adults to figure out.
Magic spells seldom work for useful purposes.
Void does differ from Forms, otherwise confusion reigns.
Form does differ from Void, otherwise mindlessness triumphs.
So you get over to the other shore--- what then do you do?
Never abandon your boat, you or others may need it again.
Nothing is ever Completely Empty!
Truth or falsity don't apply to meaningless pronouncements.

I saw Master Chang San-Feng
Enter the Sidhe, Fairies by his side,
Crossing over the pond at dawn.
Astonished I was!
On the teahouse table by the pond I later found
Some of his neatly printed notes
Folded in a well worn tome
Of the Tao Te Ching, in Chapter 14.

The Future
Grasp at it, but you can’t get it,
Colorless as an invisible crystal web,
Unformed, thin, a conundrum of ideas,
The Grand White Cloud Temple of Possibilities,
Flimsy as a maybe, strong as our hopes,
Silent as eternal Space.
When you meet it, you can’t see its face.
You want to stand for it, but cannot find a place.

The Present
It appears and disappears through the moving ten thousand things,
Quick as a wink, elusive as a hummingbird,
Always Now with no other choice,
Moving ground, unstable Plates,
Real as much as Real gets to Be,
This Day has finally come,
Room for something, for the moment, waits
Gone in a flash, assigned a date,
Gulp, swallowed by the future.
Unceasing, continuous, entering and leaving
The vast empty center of the Elixir Field.

The Past
Becoming obscurer, fading, falling apart,
A mess of memories in the matrix of brains;
Some of it written, fixed in ink, chiseled in stone,
Most of it long lost in graves of pure grey bones.
Following it you cannot see its back,
Only forms of the formless, stories, tales,
Images of imageless, fictions, myths.
A smattering of forever fixed facts,
Scattered about the homes of fading ghosts.
The twists and turns of millions of tongues
Leaving us languages, our passports to the past.

The future becomes past, the present becomes past,
Every thing lives, subtracting but seconds for Nowness, in the Past.
The Realms of the Gods, the kingdoms of men,
The Evolutionary Tree with roots a million years long
Intertwined with turtles, dragons, trees, stars and toads;
crickets, coyotes, grasses, tigers, bears, monkeys and men.

These profoundest Three of Time
An unraveled red Knot of Mystery,
Evading scrutiny in the darkness of days
Eluding capture in the brightness of nights,
In beginnings and endings are only One, the Tao,
Coming from Nowhere, Returning to Nothing.

What dimension of Time
Does your mind dwell within?
Future, Present or Past
Where is your homeland?

The Past holds the accomplishments, the created, the glories, and the Great.
The Present is but a thin coat of ice on the Pond of Fate.
The Future is an illusion, a guess, a plethora of possible states.

Recreate the Past
By playing within the Present.
Twisting and reeling one’s silky reality
From the Black Cocoons of the Acts
From which we create our Pasts.
Follow the Ancient Ways.
The Past is the Key.

Time is something everyone runs short on and finally runs out of.
The mill of the mind grinds time into memories.
Gardeners turn into the soil their lifetime.
Time may wait for no man, but seems to muddle and poke along quite slowly for gardeners.
Springtime for birth, Summertime for growth; and all Seasons for dying.
Winter does not turn into Summer; ash does not turn into firewood - on the chopping block of time.
In an instant there is nothing - Time produces Nature.
Time will tell, but we often fail to listen.
Gardeners learn to live in worm time, bee time, and seed time.
Things always go downhill, fall apart, wear out ... the arrow of Time pierces everything.
Time prevents too much from happening at once.
Time is rooted in Place.

This document was last updated, changed, reformatted, improved, edited, expanded, revised or modified on October 3, 2023.

Green Way Research, Red Bluff, California (1998-2017); Vancouver, Washington (2017-2023)

Michael Peter Garofalo (1946-) grew up in East Los Angeles, was educated in Catholic Schools, graduated (B.A., M.S.) from local universities, married Karen, served in the US Air Force, worked in and managed many City and Los Angeles County Public Libraries, raised two children (Alicia and Michael), socialized, traveled, and learned. In 1998, we moved to a rural 5 acre property in Red Bluff, in the North Sacramento Valley, CA. A webmaster since 1999. Worked part-time for the Corning School District (Technology and Media Services Manager); and as a Yoga, Taijiquan, and fitness club instructor until 2016. Traveled extensively in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington. We both retired, and we moved to Vancouver, Washington, in 2017. Currently in 2023: reading, walking, gardening, philosophy research, writing, web publishing, monthly oceanside yurt camping retreats, family events, harmonica playing, sports events, playing Tai Chi Chuan/Yoga/Qigong, Nature mysticism, poetry research, history research, and coping with heart disease and injuries.

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