Suigan, thinking he had attained something of Zen, left the monastery of Shishuan Chuyuan [six generations after Linji], when he was still a young monk, to travel all over China. Years later, when Suigan returned to visit the monastery, his old teacher Shishuan asked, “Tell me the summary of Buddhism.
Suigan answered, “if a cloud does not hang over the mountain, the moonlight will penetrate the waves of the lake.”
Shishuan looked at his former pupil in anger. He said, “You are getting old!
Your hair has turned white, and your teeth are sparse, yet you still have such an idea of Zen. How can you escape birth and death?”
Tears washed Suigan’s face as he bent his head. After a few minutes he asked,
“Please tell me the summary of [the Zen Law].”
“If a cloud does not hang over the mountain,” the teacher replied, “the moonlight will penetrate the waves of the lake.
Before the teacher had finished speaking, Suigan was enlightened.
IK's Comments: What use are words but to demonstrate how useless they are?
(Credit to u/ewk for being kind enough to dig this up for me)
Submitted June 17, 2020 at 06:30AM by IlluminatedKnight https://ift.tt/3e7a2KI
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