A Gift

MovingMountain describes a child's simple wonderment. We should cherish it in the child and nurture it in the adult. It is a divine gift. Fortunately, there are still those moments, even for me! I need to remind myself that the inner path is not all furrowed brow and striving, but more about recovering what was there all the time. Quite simple. Laughter is a clue.

"When I asked him for the real meaning of Buddhism, he immediately struck me. Three times I put this question to him, and three times I received blows. I don't know where I was at fault."
Thereupon Master Ta-yū exclaimed, "Your master treated you entirely with motherly kindness, and yet you say you do not know your fault."
Hearing this, Lin-chi was suddenly awakened and said, "After all, there isn't much in Huang-po's Buddhism!"

(Picture from a 1997 calendar I found while clearing papers: published by Pomegranate, photograph by Brian Harris. Text from "Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism, selected from The Transmission of the Lamp", trans. Chang Chung-Yuan, Pantheon Books, 1969).