A long time ago in a galaxy far away…
Zen master Gudō and his students from the village had just finished their weekly zazenkai and were enjoying some tea and biscuits.
A student asked the master:
“Master, I have a problem. I want to help sentient beings by working to improve society. But my mind is still deluded and impure. Is it more important to cultivate inner liberation before working towards the liberation of others?”
Gudō picked up the teapot and hurled it as hard as he could. It hit the wall, shattering and spilling hot tea everywhere.
The students were shocked and hurt by the master’s stupidity. It had taken them a long time and a lot of work to save enough money to buy the pot for the temple.
Later, they scolded Gudō and made him clean up his mess. While sweeping up the pieces of the pot, Gudō at last went beyond wisdom and realized true statelessness. Thus enlightened, he became known as Gudō-shi, the foolish master.
Commentary:
Between inside and out there is not the slightest difference. If emptiness were anything other than form it would not be emptiness. Liberating itself by means of itself: this is the meaning of “revolution”. One need not shatter nice teapots to discover this.
Verse:
World or mind?
Inside or out?
Compassion or wisdom?
SHOW ME THE FUCKING DIFFERENCE
Questions for study:
Where does “outside” end and “inside” begin? If you can’t find the border, how can we speak of an “outside” to begin with? In such an inside-out world, who is it that makes revolution, and what is revolutionized? Can the unenlightened liberate the enlightened? What did Gudō realize when he cleaned up the mess?
Recitation:
“Because the pupil of my eye is a hole
There’s no inside and there’s no out
The world is in me
And I am in the world
Because my teeth are the visible bones
In my mouth of invisible songs
A cave in the night is overflowing
There’s no inside, there’s no suffocation
Being “in the world” is having scattered ashes
A cave in the night is overflowing in song”
No Selves, No Masters 