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of the buddha. This is the essence of Zen."
As much as it was discussed... it was so tremendously important who was going to be the successor. Two monks were discussing it while passing a monk who had been there for twenty years, doing nothing but cleaning rice for the monastery from the early morning when he would get up, until late at night. It was not an easy job to prepare rice for one thousand monks.
Twenty years ago when he was young, he had come to the master and the master looked into his eyes and said, "If you really want to be here, just keep a few things clear. Never come again to me, just go to the kitchen. The man who used to work with the rice is dead, so you take his place. From morning till night just clean the rice, prepare the rice. You are not to participate in any sermons, in any meditations, or listen to any scriptures."
Strange conditions... a man comes to the monastery to know the truth not to prepare the rice. But the man said, "Once I have accepted you as my master, whatever you say is my way. You will never see my face again, unless you come to me."
And twenty years is a long time. The whole monastery had almost become unaware of the poor monk, because who takes notice of a man whose whole work is just to prepare rice day after day, year after year? He is not a scholar, he does not discuss anything with anybody, he does not talk with anybody, he has no friends. He was accepted almost like an automatic machine. Nobody took any notice of him.
But that morning the master came to the man, looked into his eyes again and said, "Can you improve upon this? `No-mind, discovering the buddha. This is the very essence of Zen?'"
He laughed and he said, "Some idiot must have done it. I have heard... just people walking here and there discussing it..."
"What is your idea?" the master asked.
The man said, "No-mind, no buddha, pure nothingness. What is the need to say this is the essence of Zen? It is. But no-mind, no buddha..."
The master accepted him as his successor, gave him his robe, his staff -- that is traditional in Zen -- and told him, "Run away from the monastery as fast as you can,
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