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A mud buddha can't cross through water
A gold buddha can't cross through a furnace
A wooden buddha can't cross through fire
The real buddha sits within

Blue Cliff Record, Case 96

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   Minister Luxuan was having a conversation with Nanquan and said, "Sengzhao said, 'The universe and I have the same root. The ten thousand things and I have one body.' How very strange and wonderful!"
   Nanquan pointed to a flower in the courtyard; he called out to the minister and said, "These days people see this flower as though it's a dream."

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This talk is from a recent Open Source meditation retreat called "The Secret of the Stream Bed," during which we kept company with and explored the territory of this poem by Muso Soseki:

Old Creek

Since before anyone remembers
     it has been clear
          shining like silver
though the moonlight penetrates it
     and the wind ruffles it
          no trace of either remains
Today I would not dare
     to expound the secret
          of the stream bed
But I can tell you
     that a blue dragon
          is coiled there

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  Yunmen said, "Sickness and medicine accord with one another. The whole world is medicine. What are you?"

Blue Cliff Record, Case 87

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With empty hands,
I pick up the hoe.

As I walk,
I ride the water buffalo.

As I cross the bridge, the bridge flows,
the water is still.

-Mahasattva Fu

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     Zhaozhou entered the hall and said, “It’s like a lustrous pearl in your hand. If a foreigner comes a foreigner reveals it. If a native person comes a native person reveals it.
      “This old monk uses a blade of grass as a sixty-foot golden statue. I also use a sixty-foot golden statue as a blade of grass.
     “Buddha is affliction. Affliction is Buddha.”
     A student said, “I don’t understand who is afflicted by Buddha.”
     Zhaozhou said, “All people are afflicted by Buddha.”
     The student asked, “How can affliction be avoided?”
     Zhaozhou replied, “Why avoid it?”

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  A student asked, "What is the Way?"
  The teacher replied, "Dragon murmurings in a dried up tree."
  "What is a person of the Way?"
  "Eyes in a skull."

  Later, this student asked another teacher, "What is 'dragon murmurings in a dried up tree?"
  This teacher replied, "I still have joy."
  "What is "eyes in a skull?"
  "I still have consciousness."

  And later still, this student asked another teacher, "Who can hear these dragon murmurings?"
  "There is no one who isn't hearing them."
  "What book is 'dragon murmurings in a dried up tree' from?"
  "I don't know what book it's from, but everyone who hears it dies."

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Yunmen said, “In the center of the cosmos, inside heaven and earth, there is one treasure, hidden in the body. It picks up a lantern and walks into the meditation hall. It brings the entrance gate and puts it on top of the lantern.”

Blue Cliff Record, Case 62

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A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt.
In this way, rather than relying on your own distinctions,
you dwell in the ordinary.
This is called illumination.
Understanding that abides in the unknowable is realization.
And never understanding where it all comes from –
that is called inward radiance.

                                                              -Zhuangzi

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     After Xuefeng assumed the abbacy at Snow Peak, a monk asked him, “When you were at Deshan’s place, what was it you attained that allowed you to stop looking further?”

     Xuefeng said, “I went with empty hands and returned with empty hands.”

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