You just don't know it.

Someone asked, "The blind men pass their hands over an elephant, each describing a different part. What is the real elephant like?"

Joshu said, "Nothing is false. You just don't know it."

"The Whole Elephant or the Whole Ox-as blinding cataracts, they're no different."

A group of blind people groping over an elephant each speaks of a different aspect; this comes from the Nirvana scripture.

A monk asked Yang Shan,

"Master, when you saw someone come and ask about Ch'an or ask about the Way, you then drew a circle, and wrote the word 'ox' inside it; where does the meaning of this lie?"

Yang Shan said, "This too is an idle matter: if you immediately can understand, it doesn't come from outside; if you cannot understand immediately, you certainly don't recognize it.

Now I ask you, what have the aged adepts in various places pointed out in your body as your Buddha-nature?

Do you consider it that which speaks, or is it that which is silent?

Is it not that which neither speaks nor is silent?

Or do you consider everything to be it, or do you coder that everything is not it?

If you acknowledge that which speaks as it, you are like the blind man who has grabbed on to the elephant's tail.

If you acknowledge that which is silent as it, you are like the blind man grabbing the elephant's ear.

If you acknowledge that which neither speaks nor is silent as it, you are like the blind man grabbing the elephant's trunk.

If you say everything is it, you are like the blind man grabbing the elephant's four legs.

If you say none are it, you abandon the original elephant and fall into the view of emptiness.

According to what these blind men perceive, they just attribute different names and descriptions to the elephant.

If you want to do right, just avoid groping over the elephant: do not say perceptive awareness is it, yet do not say that is not it."

What if you want to do not right?

Submitted July 21, 2017 at 02:44AM by Hip2BS http://ift.tt/2uEj7ar