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Transmission of the Light

Case 38: Teachings of the Insentient

The Pointer:

Followers of the Way, understand clealy that it cannot be given nor can it be received. Yet everywhere I go, I encounter it. Teaching, preaching. It is now me. I now am not it. To see it in this way is to realize being just as it is.

The Case:

Master Tozan called on Ungon and asked, "Who can hear the teaching of insentient beings?"

Ungon said, "It can be heard by the insentient."

Tozan asked, "Do you hear it?"

Ungon said, "If I heard it, you wouldn't hear my teaching."

Tozan said, "If so, then I don't hear your teaching."

Ungon said, "If you don't even hear my teaching, how much less the teaching of the insentient?"

Tozan was greatly enlightened at this.

He spoke a verse to Ungon: "Wondrous, marvelous. The teaching of the insentient is inconceivable. If you listen with your ears, you won't understand. When you hear the sound with your eyes, then you'll know."

Ungon approved.

Kazan Zenji's Poem:

Extremely subtle mystic consciousness.

It is not mental attachment.

All the time it causes that to teach in great profusion.