By even speaking a phrase to you,
I have already doused you with dirty water.
It would be even worse for me to put a twinkle in my eye
and raise my eyebrow to you, or rap on the meditation seat
or hold up a whisk, or demand, “What is this?”
As for shouting and hitting, it’s obvious
that this is just a pile of bones
on level ground.
There are also the type
who don’t know good from bad and
ask questions about Buddha and Dharma and Zen
and the Tao. They ask to be helped, they beg to be received,
they seek knowledge and sayings and theories relating to
the Buddhist teaching and to transcending the world
and to accommodating the world. This is washing
dirt in mud and washing mud in dirt —
when will they ever manage
to clear it away?