Manjusri Fails to Awaken the Young Woman. Is failure "wonderful indeed"?

Recorded November 16, 2024.

With this teisho Roshi Martin looks into the nature of painful failure: “Is it wonderful indeed” as the koan of “Manjusri and the Young Woman” (“Gateless Barrier” 35) proclaims? If so, how? Roshi Martin begins with the opening lines of "The Odyssey” pointing out how they reveal that it is Odysseus’s failure that sets the epic of a man overcoming difficulties and temptations to return to his true home, in motion. Then he reads and comments on Chapter 5 of his recent book “A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas,” which explores the koan of how the great Bodhisattva of Wisdom fails to awaken a young woman. The koan’s conclusion that “the failure is wonderful indeed” merits special exploration. What does it mean?!

Books referenced:

• “A Zen Life of Bodhisattvas” by Rafe Martin
• “The Gateless Barrier: The Wu-Men Kuan (Mumonkan)”, Translated and with a Commentary by Robert Aitken
• “The Odyssey,” Robert Fitzgerald translation

Photo: Manjusri and students at Endless Path Zendo by Rafe Martin

• Books by Roshi Rafe Martin
• Talks on YouTube
• More information at endlesspathzen.org