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absolutely silent and absolutely clear. In that clarity is Buddhahood, in that clarity is awakening. That clarity is awakening.
"HOW, THEN, CAN ONE REGARD THIS AS RIGHT AND THAT AS WRONG?"
There is nothing left. There is no question of this and that, so one cannot have any doubt. It is unmistakably so. There is only void, vast clarity and infinite sky. And all is silent: all duality gone, the knower gone, the known gone, the seer gone, the seen gone, the observer gone, the observed gone, the objective, the subjective... all are gone. There is only a pure clarity, a silent witnessing. In this there is no content so you cannot mistake that this is right or that is right. There is nothing left, there is no content. Hence it is unmistakably so, it is indubitably so, it is self-evidently so.
UPON HEARING THIS REMARK. CHAO CHOU WAS IMMEDIATELY AWAKENED.
If one knows how to hear... Chao Chou was living with Nan Chuan for many years, so don't think that it was the first encounter with the Master: it was the last encounter, in fact. After that there was nothing left. But he was living with the Master meditating, sitting silently, listening, just being with the Master, for years -- as if the fruit was absolutely ripe and just a little breeze and the fruit falls to the earth. It would not have happened if the fruit was not ripe, remember.
UPON HEARING THIS REMARK...
The remark is tremendously significant, but it will penetrate to your heart only if you have been in deep communion with the Master. It was the last effort of the mind, the last effort of logic. He was just on the borderline when this remark was made, when Nan Chuan said:
"IF ONE CAN REALIZE THE TAO UNMISTAKABLY, HIS MIND WILL BE LIKE THE GREAT SPACE -- VAST, VOID, AND CLEAR. HOW, THEN, CAN ONE REGARD THIS AS RIGHT AND THAT AS WRONG?"
UPON HEARING THIS REMARK, CHAO CHOU WAS IMMEDIATELY AWAKENED.
This immediate awakening, this sudden awakening is one of the great problems for others, for those who don't understand Zen and its approach. For them realization means a gradual phenomenon, but for Zen it is always sudden, it is always immediate. And it should
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