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and the more she longed for enlightenment

the further off it was.

But one moonlit night she was carrying an old pail filled with water

– and the thing happened!

She was watching the full moon reflected

in her pail of water

when the bamboo strip that held the pail staves broke.

The pail fell all apart,

the water ran out,

the moon’s reflection disappeared –

and with it Chiyono herself disappeared.

She was not – but the enlightenment was there!

She wrote this verse:

This way and that way

I tried to keep the pail together,

hoping the weak bamboo

would never break.

But suddenly the bottom fell out:

no more water

no more moon in the water –

and emptiness in my hand!

266. Love.

One day Lin-chi was asked: What is the essence of meditation?

Lin-chi came right down from his seat

and taking hold of the questioner by the front of his robe,

slapped his face, then let him go.

The questioner, of course, stood there stupefied.

Then Lin-chi laughed and said to him:

Why don’t you bow?

This woke him from his reverie,

and when he was about to make a bow to the master

he had his first taste of meditation!

Please read this again and again and again,

and if you do not have the same taste

then slap your face yourself

then laugh and bow down to yourself –

and then you will certainly have the same taste.

267. Love.

The sun is rising high in the sky.

Its light enters the house through an opening.

The dust is seen moving in the ray of light

but the empty space of the room is unmoving.

Now close your eyes and be silent.

Then ask yourself: Who am I –

the moving dust or the unmoving space of the room?

Do not answer intellectually,

because intellectual answers are not answers,

but wait and realize.

Hsu Yun says: The mind is nothing but foreign dust.

Who are you – the mind? – the foreign dust? or —?

268. Love.

The mind exists to raise questions,

but only questions.

It never answers,

and it can never answer.

That is beyond it,

it is not meant for that,

that is not its function.

But it tries to answer,

and the result is the mess called philosophy!

Meditation never questions,

but it answers.

It is the answer,

because it is life,

because it is existence.

Question – and there is no answer.

Do not question – and you are the answer.

Why is it so?

It is so because

the questioning consciousness, mind, is disturbed,

and the non-questioning consciousness, no-mind,

is silent, quiet and at rest in its suchness.

Philosophy comes out of questioning,

religion, out of the non-questioning consciousness.

Logic is the method of philosophy

and meditation the method of religion.

269. Love.

If the present is just continuous with the past

then it is not present at all.

To be present,

the present must be discontinuous with the past,

only then is it young, fresh and new –

and then it is not a part of time

but is eternity itself.

The now is eternal

but we live in the past or in the future –

which is nothing but a faint echo of the past itself.

Our whole activity springs from the past

or the future –

which is the same thing.

Then the present is false and dead:

and if the present is false then we cannot be real,

and if the present is dead then we cannot be alive.

That is why I insist on living in the present

and dying each moment to the past.

Live atomically – moment to moment –

and then your life will have a totally different quality:

the quality of the divine.

270. Love.

To me meditation means –

be playful and transcend all seriousness.

See: life is not serious.

Look around: existence is not serious.

Only disease is serious, and of course death,

and the exploiters of death – the priests!

Life is playful and festive and therefore purposeless.

It is not going anywhere, because there is nowhere to go.

It is always here and here.

It is always now and now.

It is just abundant energy overflowing from here to here

and from now to now,

and once you know it and be it

you are in that ecstasy which is the purpose

of purposelessness!

Don’t be a mind and you will know it and be it.

Meditation is no-mindedness.

Mind is thinking, and thinking is going astray

from the being.

Mind is forgetfulness of “that which is”.

Meditation is coming back home.

So, come back home.

And I create situations so that

you may remember the forgotten,

and I will go on creating situations

until you have returned.

271. Love.

There are things which cannot be proved,

and there is no evidence for them

because they are self-evident.

To try to prove them is ridiculous,

and the effort shows that one