Tag: Prayer

Rinzai instructed his assembly and said, “There is one true person of no rank, always coming out and going in through the gates of your face. Beginners who have not yet witnessed that, look! look!”

Then a monk came out and asked, “What is the one true person of no rank?” Rinzai descended from the rostrum and grabbed him.

The monk hesitated.

Rinzai pushed him away and said, “The true person of no rank — what a shit-stick you are!”

Isan asked Kyôzan, “Suppose a man asks you, saying, ‘All living beings are tossed in a vast karma-consciousness, and have no foundation to rely upon.’ How would you check him?”

Kyôzan said, “If such a monk appears, I call out to him, ‘Mr. So-and-so!’ When he turns his head, instantly I say, ‘What is this?’ If he hesitates, then I say to him, ‘Not only is there a vast karma-consciousness, but also there is no foundation to rely upon.’”

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"
href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_1JE3hllIxO8/SfhR82by7tI/AAAAAAAAH_o/mn1cCrHqPDU/s1600/ANOST015_Cover.jpg”&gt;

Isan said, “Good.”

Great Master Ba was seriously ill.

The temple steward asked him,

“Master, how are you feeling these days?”

Great Master said,

“Sun-faced Buddha, Moon-faced Buddha.”

Rakuho came to Kassan and without bowing stood facing him.

Kassan said, “A chicken dwells in the phoenix nest. It’s not of the same class. Go away.”

Rakuho said, “I have come from far away, hearing much about you. Please, Master, I beg you to guide me.”

Kassan said, “Before my eyes there is no you, and here there is no old monk.”

Rakuho shouted, “Kaatz!”

Kassan said, “Stop it, stop it. Don’t be so careless and hasty. Clouds and the moon are the same; valleys and mountains are different from each other. It is not difficult to cut off the tongues of the people under heaven. But how can you make a tongueless person speak?”

Rakuho said nothing.

Kassan hit him.

With this, Rakuho started to obey Kassan.

Fuketsu, giving instruction, said,

“If one raises a speck of dust, the house and the nation prosper.

If one does not raise a speck of dust, they perish.”

Setchô held up his staff and said,

“Is there anyone who lives and dies with this?”

Sanshô asked Seppô, “When a fish with golden scales has passed through the net, what should it get for food?”

Seppô said, “I will tell you when you have passed through the net.”

Sanshô said, “A great Zen master with 1500 disciples doesn’t know how to speak.”

Seppô said, “The old monk is just too busy with temple affairs.”

Kyôzan asked a monk, “Where do you come from?”

The monk said, “I am from Yû Province”

Kyôzan said, “Do you think of that place?”

The monk said, “I always do.”

Kyôzan said, “That which thinks is the mind. That which is thought about is the objective world. Within that are mountains, rivers and the great earth, towers, palaces, people, animals, and other things. Reflect upon the mind that thinks. Are there a lot of things there?”

The monk said, “I don’t see anything at all there.”

Kyôzan said, “That’s right for the stage of understanding, but not yet for the stage of personalization.”

The monk said, “Do you have any special advice, Master?”

Kyôzan said, “It is not right to say that there is or there is not. Your insight shows that you have obtained only one side of the mystery. Sitting down, putting on clothes – from now on you see by yourself.”