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love, you are not going to use it yourself. Naturally, not being used for fifty years -- and a name is an arbitrary device -- Edison forgot his.
But you have forgotten your innermost being. His loss was not much of a loss, just a label. Your loss is far deeper and greater. For centuries you have lived, but you don't know who you are.
The explosion of enlightenment is: Suddenly you become aware of your eternal being.
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."
This is how in Zen very subtle and intricate matters become immensely important. To the outsider it will look a stupid question.
In the first place, you should remember that sending a mirror as a gift -- he is opening a new monastery, he will be the master -- sending the mirror to him is to remind him: "Don't forget. This mirror will remind you that whatever the mirror reflects is not you. But whoever witnesses the reflection in the mirror, that is your buddhahood."
Kyozan rose to these heights. He said to the assembly of monks:
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.
To answer the question a man of enlightenment was needed. Spontaneously he would have responded -- thousands of ways are open -- but remaining silent, dumb, simply shows your ignorance, your unawareness. And Kyozan's smashing the mirror is just to make a beginning to what is going to happen in his monastery.
If anyone had been enlightened he could have done anything. He could have come and slapped Kyozan and taken the mirror from him, and said to the assembly, "The mirror is mine! There is no need to smash it." Or anything!
The mirror is nobody's. And to use a gift of the master on the first day of the opening ceremony... this is not nice to smash the mirror. Somebody was needed
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