Know Nothing

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Case One of the Blue Cliff Record tells the story of Master Bodhidharma’s interaction with Emperor Wu-tei. “What is the first principle of the holy teaching?” the Emperor asks. To which Bodhidharma answers, “In the boundless universe there exists nothing to be called ‘holy’.”
“Then whom am I facing?” (Are not you a holy man?), the Emperor asks. Bodhidharma replied, “I know not.”

Sacred and profane are not separate. They are not one. They are mere concepts, like so many leaves scattered on the porch by the wind through branches of aged trees approaching winter. What is this? Meaningless. Who am I? Meaningless.

There is no answer that does not harm us. Master Bodhidharma might have better taught by walking away in silence.

Yet, in doing so we recognize such a teaching would offend our Western sensibilities. We so deeply live in a rationalized, empiricized, dualized interior world that we cannot hear the knock at the door. We cannot perceive the teaching.

My answer? Be still even when running. Pay attention to the whispers in the trees, the whirl of the drier, the sounds of the office, the feeling of your heart beating. There are no words, just life. And if it were water, we need but dive right in.

Be well.