Something to Think About

Not Saying but Being

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said:

“The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomena is emptiness. There is no realization, no delusion, no wisdom, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received.”

Dukuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

“If nothing exists,” inquired Dokuon, “where did this anger come from?”
_{Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones}

“I want you to be a true king in reality”, said the Great Master, “not only in theory and assumption. Not only to say, like a pretender, that you are ‘atma’ – eternal, immortal, deathless, all-knower, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, the changeless, the creator of all, beyond mind and senses - but to be so in reality …”

"But there is great pleasure in saying ‘I am God, the Lord of all’, the barrister declared.

“Not in saying, but in being”, corrected the Great Master.
_{Daryai Lal Kapur, Call of the Great Master}