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I still remember the contents of the gatha.
I have one jewel shining bright.
Long buried it was underneath worldly worries.
This morning the dusty veil is off and restored is its luster.
Illumining rivers and mountains and ten thousand things.
Shauduan could not understand why his teacher burst into laughter.
He did not sleep the whole night.
the next morning...
Master,
why did you laugh after hearing Master Yue's gatha?
Did you see the exorcists in the street yesterday?
Yes, I did.
In what way are you no better than the exorcists?
Master, what are you referring to?
the exorcists want people to laugh,
but you are afraid of people laughing.
When Shouduan heard this, he was enlightened.
Zen is beyond the state of logic.
Its practice is to examine...
thoroughly the life of a common person,
and to steer clear of stifling rigidity and abstraction.
To grasp nothingness.
Shigong Huicang asked his younger fellow disciple Xitang Chizang.
Can you grasp nothingness?
You try.
Okay.
Is that all?
You have grasped nothing.
How do you think I should grasp it?
Grasp it like this.
Ouch! It is painful.
Since form is emptiness and emptiness is form,
then instead of a hand grasping at nothing,
it is better to grasp at someone's nose because this is closer to reality.
The fire spirit comes for fire.
Xuanze asked Qingfeng...
What is Buddha?
The fire spirit comes for fire.
I understand! I understand!
I understand!
What did you get?
The fire spirit is no different from fire. When he comes for fire,
it is like myself who, being a Buddha from the very beginning,
wants to know what Buddha is.
Jut as I thought,
you have not understood.
That is strange!
My answer was obviously right, so why is it not correct?
May I ask... what is Buddha?
The fire spirit comes for fire.
I understand... This time I have really understood.
No matter the question or the answer,
the first answer was just a response of memory.
But when Xuanze had exhausted thought,
he had a sudden enlightenment.
The way to truth is right before you.
A Zen pupil asked Master Yuezhou Qianfeng...
All Buddha of the ten parts of the universe.
enter the one road of nirvana
Where does that road begin?
Right here.
The meaning of life is not to be found in a distant world of abstraction.
But in paying attention to everyday happenings and details of ones life.
One's perception has to be in the field of living.
In contemplating where the truth may be found,
it just might be right before you.
Dongshan's " no cold or heat"
When cold and heat come, how can we avoid them?
Why not go to a place where there is no cold or heat?
What is the place where there is no cold or heat?
When it is cold, your ego freezes to death.
When it is hot, your ego swelters to death.
In the practice of Zen,
there is no need for a special place.
Once the heat of the ego is put out,
naturally there is a sense of well-being.
In life there are the opposites
of our likes and dislikes such as heat and cold.
A person who is one
with heat or cold does not regard them as opposites.
As a result, to him there are no such opposites as heat and cold.
The nun becomes a monk.
A nun asked Master Longtan...
How should I practice Zen so that in my next life I become a monk?
How long have you been a nun?
My question is:
Do I have any chance of becoming a monk?
What are you now?
I am a nun, who does not know that?
Who knows you?
Men and women may seem different, but in the world of Zen,
they are each other. To maintain they are different is an absurdity.
What can one who believes in such an absurdity hope to learn?
Three pounds of hemp.
A novice monk asked Master Dongshan,
What is Buddha?
Three pounds of hemp.
Puzzled, the monk went to ask Master Zhimen Guangzu...
I asked Dongshan about the meaning of Buddha,
and he answered: three pounds of hemp.
What does it mean?
Flowering groves, multicoloured forests.
I still do not understand.
Bamboo of the South, wood of the North.
Got it?
The more I hear, the more I do not understand.
Thus the monk went back to Dongshan to find out from him.
Words do not express facts. Speech does not accord with the situation.
Those who accept words are lost,
and those who linger over phrases are deluded.
If can be likened to the situation where a stone strikes a dog.
But if a stone strikes a lion,
the lion disregards the stone and charges at the person who threw it.
One must not be like the dog
but be like the lion in Zen practice.
The Zen practitioner's utterances are but words suited for the occasion,
a kind of " word head" that draws one into a deeper realm.
One must not think that the literal meaning is what Zen is all about.
Buffalo passing through a window.
A buffalo passes through a window,
the horns and the four legs go past.
Only the tail does not pass through.
A person may resolve to give up worldly things
and undergo hardship to practice Zen,
but the desire for fame is still there.
Such a person still has traces of weakness,
like a buffalo which passes through
the window but whose tail fails to get through.
Having such blind spots, one cannot be considered perceptive.
To be master of oneself.
Nature begets all things.
The formless is by nature alone yet complete and silent.
To be like a master to all things.
And to go beyond time.
Humans are in essence one with the whole.
A person who sees
that one is not separated from the whole is the Tao,
Buddha, and the spirit of Zen.
To be master of oneself,
one must not regard environment and circumstances as obstacles,
but change oneself.
A day of wind and rain.
Shunneng was a Zen master of the Southern Song Dynasty.
An eternity of endless space, a day of wind and rain.
We must not cling to the wind and moon of a day...
and ignore the eternal emptiness.
Neither should we cling to the eternal emptiness.
And give no attention to the wind and moon of the day.
People complain of the heat.
But I love the summer day because it lasts so long.
Warm wind comes from the south, and a comfortable coolness
is born around the temple and the terrace.
To understand or not to understand, be sure to avoid dualistic thinking.
People generally have to wait until their times of difficulty are over
to realize that there is also a bright side to them.
If one can have perception at the moment,
then summer has its advantage
and winter is also wonderful.
The snake's two conflicting heads
There was a snake in the forest
which was leading a carefree life until one day...
Hey, snake head, why is it that you are always moving forward.
and I can only follow behind? This is not fair.
Snake tail, I have eyes,
so of course I take the lead in going forward.
How could you be moving forward?
If not for the motion of my tail,
how could you move forward?
I go wherever I please.
You cannot do anything about it.
Move by yourself if you are able to.
Disgusting! I am determined to move away.
No way out! I really cannot move.
You win! I am not going to contend with you.
You can take the lead in moving forward.
You win!
Just go ahead.
As a result the snake tail very haughtily moved forward...
and felt very conceited.
However, it did not have eyes and could not see where it was going...
What's the use of letting you go ahead?
Now, we just can't move.
Watch out! There is a cliff!
In the end, the snake fell to its death in the ravine.
Heaven and earth merge with me,
all things and I are one.
The myriad things may have countless forms
but their essence is the same.
The frog's soliloquy.
Don't you understand?
Let me tell you a story of the frog.
Pay attention!
In the undergrowth by the side of a pond...
lived a group of frogs.
What a nice place!
Heaven exists for us.
Earth exists for us,
So that we have space to live.
Bravo! Wonderful!
Water exists for us,
the air exists for us frog.
Bravo!
Bravo!
Bravo!
Bravo...
The insects in the air exist for us.
The fruits on earth exist for us frogs.
Bravo!
The snake is here!