Three-Hundred-Mile Tiger: The Record of Lin-Chi Translation and Commentary by Sokei-An

Of course, this begs the question asked by Bodhidharma, “You talk about non-realization. But how do you realize non-realization?” Thus, Lao-tzu says, “Those who seek learning gain every day / those who seek the Way lose every day / they lose and they lose / until they find nothing to do / nothing to do means nothing not done.” (Taoteching: 48)

A man was working on the koan “No” for some years. He noticed how compulsive the mind can be, and for him, to bring his mind back to the koan, over and over again, many times a minute if necessary, was to gain an enlightenment at the simplest and most fundamental level—to survive the debris of the mind. It can be consoling to discover that you don’

the general practice of Buddhism, which is to free the mind from its habitual confusion of words, ideas, and concepts with reality, and from all those emotional disturbances and entanglements which flow from this confusion. Thus the ego, time, the body, life, and death are all viewed as concepts having neither more nor less reality than abstract nu