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OUR BELOVED MASTER,
ONCE, WHEN HE WAS STILL WITH HIS MASTER, KYOZAN SAID TO ISAN, "WHERE DOES THE REAL BUDDHA DWELL?"
ISAN REPLIED, "BY MEANS OF THE SUBTLETY OF THOUGHTLESS THOUGHT, CONTEMPLATE THE BOUNDLESS SPIRITUAL BRIGHTNESS. CONTEMPLATE IT UNTIL RETURNING TO THE GROUND OF BEING, THE ALWAYS ABIDING NATURE, AND ITS FORM OF THE UNDICHOTOMOUS PRINCIPLE. THIS IS THE REAL BUDDHA."
ON HEARING THIS, KYOZAN WAS ENLIGHTENED.
LATER, WHEN KYOZAN HAD BECOME A MASTER HIMSELF, ISAN SENT HIM A MIRROR AS A GIFT. WHEN HE WENT TO THE HALL WHERE HIS MONKS WERE ASSEMBLED, KYOZAN HELD UP THE MIRROR AND SAID TO THE ASSEMBLY, "PLEASE SAY WHETHER THIS IS ISAN'S MIRROR OR KYOZAN'S MIRROR. IF SOMEONE CAN GIVE A CORRECT REPLY, I WILL NOT SMASH IT."
NO ONE ANSWERED, AND KYOZAN SMASHED THE MIRROR.
Maneesha, a new series of talks begins today.
These are not sermons in a church; these are communions. A discourse, a sermon, remains within the limits of the mind. Only a communion can raise you beyond the mind, and that which is beyond the mind is Zen. A new series of communions is a great event. We will be looking into the very heart of Kyozan.
Kyozan was a very simple man -- not the philosophic kind, not a poet, nor a sculptor. Nothing can be said about him except that he was absolutely authentic, honest. If he does not know a thing he will say so, even at the risk of people thinking that he has fallen from his enlightenment. But this makes him a unique master.
Zen is full of unique masters, but Kyozan's uniqueness is his simplicity. He is just like a child. It took Isan, his master, forty years of hard work to make Kyozan enlightened. He was determined, and he said he would not leave the body until Kyozan became enlightened -- though he was old enough.
Kyozan did everything that Isan said, but nothing penetrated to his very being. He was a very ordinary man. Heaven and hell, God and the beyond had never worried him. He was not a seeker in the sense every seeker is -- a seeker of truth.
No, he was not seeking truth, because he is reported to have said that, "If you are seeking the truth you have certainly accepted
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