an encounter dialogue

Professor Enlightenment was silent and said nothing.


Conditionality then arose suddenly and asked Professor Enlightenment: "What is the mind? What is it to pacify the mind?"

[The master] answered: "You should not posit a mind, nor should you attempt to pacify it—this is called 'pacified.'"


Question: "If there is no mind, how can one cultivate enlightenment?"

Answer: "Enlightenment is not a thought of the mind, so how could it occur in the mind?"


Question: "If it is not thought of by the mind, how should it be thought of?"

Answer: "If there are thoughts then there is mind, and for there to be mind is contrary to enlightenment. If there is no thought, then there is no mind, and for there to be no mind is true enlightenment."


Question: "What 'things' are there in no-mind?"

Answer: "No-mind is without 'things.' The absence of things is the Naturally True. The Naturally True is the Great Enlightenment."


Question: "What should I do?"

Answer: "You should do nothing."


Question: "I understand this teaching now even less than before."

Answer: "There truly is no understanding of the Dharma. Do not seek to understand it."


Question: "Who teaches these words?"

Answer: "It is as I have been asked."


Question: "What does it mean to say that it is as you have been asked?"

Answer: "If you contemplate [your own] questions, the answers will be understood [thereby] as well."


At this Conditionality was silent and he thought everything through once again.


Professor Enlightenment asked: "Why do you not say anything?"

Conditionality answered: "I do not perceive even the most minute bit of anything that can be explained."


At this point Professor Enlightenment said to Conditionality: "You would appear to have now perceived the True Principle."


Conditionality asked: "Why [do you say] 'would appear to have perceived' and not that I 'correctly perceived' [the True Principle]?"

Enlightenment answered: "What you have now perceived is the nonexistence of all dharmas. This is like the non-Buddhists who study how to make themselves invisible, but cannot destroy their shadow and footprints."


Conditionality asked: "How can one destroy both form and shadow?"

Enlightenment answered: "Being fundamentally without mind and its sensory realms, you must not willfully generate the ascriptive view (or, "perception") of impermanence."


from ‘Treatise on the Transcendence of Cognition’

rekoan 12 - naturally

Costello asked the Abbott, “What are the teachings of a whole lifetime?”

The Abbott said, “Naturally.”

rekoan 11 - snow

Why asked, “What is ‘Who am I?’”

No one said, “Amassing snow in a silver vessel.”

dreamverse 1 - singing

o glorious illusion
late september
sapphire river

flowing through
the jade-inspired
mystery

of everything
i am to thee
my sun is singing

rekoan 10 - hemp

A monk asked Walt Whitman, “What is Truth?”

Walt Whitman said, “Cipher and show me some hemp, exactly the contents of one or three pounds, and which is ahead.”

rekoan 9 - guides

The Big Chief, instructing the passengers, said, “You’re all guzzling scum; if you go on traveling around this way, where will you have Now? Do you know there are no guides for Reality in all the USA?”

At that time Ken Kesey came forward and said, “Then what about those on various roads who Drive the Experience and Steer those On the Bus?”

The Big Chief said, “I do not say that there is no Reality, it's just that there are no guides.”

rekoan 8 - quarterdeck

Ahab hadn’t ascended the quarterdeck for a long time. Ishmael said to him, “My shipmates have been wanting instruction for a long time—please, Captain, give the crew a sermon.”

Ahab had him sound the ship’s bell. When the congregation had gathered, Ahab ascended his pulpit. After a while he descended and returned to his cabin.

Ishmael followed after him and asked, “You agreed to expound upon the sea of truth for the crew; why didn’t you utter a single word?”

Ahab said, “For the peaks of scriptures there are teachers of scriptures, for the fertile valleys of theology there are teachers of theology. Who are you to question this old sea dog?”

rekoan 7 - pure

A follower asked Jesus, “Apart from existence, nonexistence, both, or neither, what is the meaning of the living Christ?”

Jesus replied, “My body aches. I can’t explain it to you. Go ask one of my disciples.”

The follower went to Peter and asked him the same question.

“You should ask Jesus,” Peter replied.

“I did, and he told me to ask you,” the follower answered.

“My head hurts. I can’t explain it to you. Go ask Mary Magdalene.”

The follower asked Mary Magdalene the same question.

She replied, “When I arrive at this point, I don't understand.”

The follower related this to Jesus. Jesus said, “Peter is complete; Mary is pure.”