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KYOZAN PULLED FORWARD THE PILLOW.
In any reference, in any context, it will look absurd. The man is asking a question and you give him your pillow! And this is the one that can give you the answer.
The pillow represents total rest, total relaxation, going inwards so deep that the outer world is almost like a dream you have seen sometime. When the outer world starts looking illusory, you have come to the center point of your being. There is the answer. The answer is in your experience of utter restfulness.
KYOZAN'S MASTER, ON HEARING OF THIS INTERCHANGE SAID, "KYOZAN IS USING THE BLADE OF THE SWORD."
An ordinary man will not understand anything. Only a man who has the sharpness of intelligence like a sword will be able to understand.
A beautiful answer he has given, but you would have been puzzled. You would have looked at the pillow. And how does the pillow explain the question, "What is Buddha's ultimate natural body?" It certainly conveys something.
Zen is very earthbound, very pragmatic. By showing his pillow to him, he is saying, "What cannot be said can be experienced. Just rest, and rest with totality."
That's what we are doing here every day. Your meditation is an ultimate rest.
But Isan commented, "KYOZAN IS USING THE BLADE OF THE SWORD."
The person may not understand it, most probably will not understand it and will think that this Zen is all nonsense, or may think that the pillow actually is the answer; so, "Keep a pillow continuously with you and you have found the body of the buddha." Now what the person does with such an exchange can be dangerous.
But masters look deep into disciples and say only things or indicate only things which they are capable of. No master is so unkind as to give a child a sword.
Basho wrote:
DEWDROPS --
HOW BETTER WASH AWAY
WORLD'S DUST?
The experience of truth is just washing away the dust that goes on gathering on your mirrorlike consciousness.
Basho says:
DEWDROPS --
HOW BETTER WASH AWAY
WORLD'S DUST?
The dewdrops may be small but they can cleanse your inner eye, your mirror, which has
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