SHOW ME YOUR EGO-MIND
One of the most famous legends spun about Bodhidharma is that the seeker Huike (Chinese WadeGiles: Hui-k'o) patiently stood deep in the nocturnal snow outside the old master’s cave, yearning for instruction. He finally hacked off his own left forearm and presented it as a demonstration of his sincere aspiration for complete enlightenment. (In Daoxuan’s earlier and likely more accurate account, wandering bandits had cut off his arm.) Bodhidharma told Huike: “This enlightenment is not to be sought through another.” Huike begged to have his agitated self or mind pacified. The sage retorted, “Show me your self and I will pacify it.” Huike said “I’ve sought it many years but can’t get hold of it.” Bodhidharma then declared: “There! It is pacified once and for all!” Upon hearing this, suddenly Huike completely awakened to his transcendent True Nature before/beyond the ego-self. He was free in/as his Ever-Free Nature. (Huike would retrospectively later be designated the “second Patriarch” of a “Chan School” of Buddhism by authors writing around 700 CE).
But now, what about that forearm—was it still with Huike? Did he care? Was he not the fullness and wholeness of Perfect Realization? In any case, now we know where Hakuin (d.1768) got his famous Zen koan: "What is the sound of one hand?"
And if you pity Huike for that silly old lost forearm, he's still got one very good arm with which to smack you!
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DRUNK
Japanese Zen master Oda Sesso (1901-66), abbot of Kyoto's Daitokuji monastery, warned, “There is little to choose between a man lying in the ditch heavily drunk on rice liquor, and a man heavily drunk on his own ‘enlightenment’!”
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Courtesy of :
http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Zen_Humor.html
One of the most famous legends spun about Bodhidharma is that the seeker Huike (Chinese WadeGiles: Hui-k'o) patiently stood deep in the nocturnal snow outside the old master’s cave, yearning for instruction. He finally hacked off his own left forearm and presented it as a demonstration of his sincere aspiration for complete enlightenment. (In Daoxuan’s earlier and likely more accurate account, wandering bandits had cut off his arm.) Bodhidharma told Huike: “This enlightenment is not to be sought through another.” Huike begged to have his agitated self or mind pacified. The sage retorted, “Show me your self and I will pacify it.” Huike said “I’ve sought it many years but can’t get hold of it.” Bodhidharma then declared: “There! It is pacified once and for all!” Upon hearing this, suddenly Huike completely awakened to his transcendent True Nature before/beyond the ego-self. He was free in/as his Ever-Free Nature. (Huike would retrospectively later be designated the “second Patriarch” of a “Chan School” of Buddhism by authors writing around 700 CE).
But now, what about that forearm—was it still with Huike? Did he care? Was he not the fullness and wholeness of Perfect Realization? In any case, now we know where Hakuin (d.1768) got his famous Zen koan: "What is the sound of one hand?"
And if you pity Huike for that silly old lost forearm, he's still got one very good arm with which to smack you!
----------------------
DRUNK
Japanese Zen master Oda Sesso (1901-66), abbot of Kyoto's Daitokuji monastery, warned, “There is little to choose between a man lying in the ditch heavily drunk on rice liquor, and a man heavily drunk on his own ‘enlightenment’!”
-----------------------
Courtesy of :
http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Zen_Humor.html
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