Zhaozhou's Good Thing

The master was leaving the main hall when he saw a monk bowing to him.

The master struck him with his stick.

The monk said, "But bowing is a good thing’”

The master said. “A good thing is not as good as nothing.

Bowing can be seen as a deference to the other party's status in a relationship. What sticks out to me is that Zhaozhou not only forcefully rejects someone trying to defer to him but says that deference itself is not the type of relationship that Zen has.

The radical egalitarian relationship Zen Masters have is expounded by Foyan when he says, "From the Buddhas above to the totality of beings below, all is thus. In this sense, sages and ordinary people are equal, wrong and right are equal; samsara and nirvana are equal."

Submitted February 05, 2023 at 08:30PM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/EwYmXDn