An old farmer had plowed around a large rock in one of his fields for years. He had broken several plowshares and a cultivator on it and had grown rather morbid about the rock. After breaking another plowshare one day, and remembering all the trouble the rock had caused him through the years, he finally [...]
Tosui was the Zen master who left the formalism of temples to live under a bridge with beggars. When he was getting very old, a friend helped him earn his living without begging. He showed Tosui how to collect rice and manufacture vinegar from it, and Tosui did this until he passed away. While Tosui [...]
A cosmic god had a horse. The horse was beautiful and also it had many good qualities. But it wanted to be more perfect in every way. It especially wanted to become beauty unparalleled. One day the horse said to the cosmic god, “O Lord, you have given me beauty. You have given me other [...]
Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him. “Shall I lead you on?” Ikkyu asked. Ninakawa replied: “I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?” Ikkyu answered: “If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path [...]
Daibai asked Baso: “What is Buddha?” Baso said: “This mind is Buddha.” If anyone wholly understands this, he is wearing Buddha’s clothing, he is eating Buddha’s food, he is speaking Buddha’s words, he is behaving as Buddha, he is Buddha. This anecdote, however, has given many pupil the sickness of formality. If one truly understands, [...]
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: “The flag is moving.” The other said: “The wind is moving.” The sixth patriach happened to be passing by. He told them: “Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving.”
Tokusan was studying Zen under Ryutan. One night he came to Ryutan and asked many questions. The teacher said: “The night is getting old. Why don”t you retire?” So Tukusan bowed and opened the screen to go out, observing: “It is very dark outside.” Ryutan offered Tokusan a lighted candle to find his way. Just [...]
A monk asked Nansen: “Is there a teaching no master ever preached before?” Nansen said: “Yes, there is.” “What is it?” asked the monk. Nansen replied: “It is not mind, it is not Buddha, it is not things.”
A monk asked Fuketsu: “Without speaking, without silence, how can you express the truth?” Fuketsu observed: “I always remember spring-time in southern China. The birds sing among innumerable kinds of fragrant flowers.”
When he became emancipated the sixth patriach received from the fifth patriach the bowl and robe given from the Buddha to his successors, generation after generation. A monk named E-myo out of envy pursued the patriach to take this great treasure away from him. The sixth patriach placed the bowl and robe on a stone [...]