Kindling the Inexhaustible Lamp
By even speaking a phrase to you, I have already doused you with dirty water. It would be even worse for me to put a twinkle in my eye and raise my eyebrow to you, or tap on the meditation seat or hold up a whisk, or demand “what is this?” As for shouting and hitting, it’s obvious that this is just a pile of bones on level ground.
There are also the type who don’t know good from bad and ask questions about Buddha and Dharma and Zen and the Tao. They ask to be helped, they beg to be received, they seek knowledge and sayings and theories relating to the Buddhist teaching and to transcending the world and to accommodating the world. This is washing dirt in mud and washing mud in dirty – when will they ever manage to clear it away?
Some people here this kind of talk and jump to conclusions, claiming “I understand! Fundamentally there is nothing to Buddhism – it’s there in everybody. As I spend my days eating food and wearing clothes, has there ever been anything lacking?” Then they settle down in the realm of unconcerned ordinariness, far from realizing that nothing like this has ever been part of the real practice of Buddhism.
Source: Zen Letters: Teaching of Yuanwu
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