Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Louie Wing roared with laughter

Louie Wing said, “You hear me say that there is not an objective particle in the entire universe and you misunderstand, and immediately start searching inside your body and mind. You sit up day and night in meditation, torturing your knees and straining your backs. What have your knees and backs done to deserve such punishment?

If you think you are following the teachings of the sages by such a display, you are sadly mistaken. Awakening does bring a certain kind of stillness to body and mind, but literally forcing the body and mind to be still does not bring awakening. An ancient Zen master said, ‘When you want the cart to move, do you whip the cart, or do you whip the ox?’ I say, you had better heed his words, some of your carts don’t look like they can take much more whipping!”

Then Louie Wing roared with laughter. After a few moments of that, several students walked out, which seemed only to provoke Louie Wing to even deeper fits of laughter, and tears ran down his cheeks.
--From The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing: The Second Ancestor of Zen in the West by Ted Biringer

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