Here I would like to mention that there was a monk who lived until he was 100 years old, and his life was really an artistic life. He is an excellent artistic image, detached, free, and at ease. People came to him and asked him how to practice.

He said, "Please sit down for a moment, I still have something to do." ”

What to do? He went to the bathroom. When he came back from the bathroom, he said to the visitor, "You must know that no one else can replace the matter of cultivation, and no one else can replace me with the trivial matter of going to the bathroom. Cultivating such a big thing, it is not enough to just say it, you must do it yourself. ”

He said it this way. We don't have people who practice like that, and if you really say that, people will say that you are insane. But when he said this, people believed him because he had virtue and strength. How chic, how comfortable!

Once, a participant asked this monk, "How is the ancestor from the west?" ”

He pointed his hand: "Cypress tree in front of the court." ”

You say that the east answers the west, and you say that the south answers the north, as if the wind and horses and cows are not related, but in fact he clearly shows you what the west means: everything is ready-made.

There is also a public case of "eating tea and going". When a scholar came to pay homage to him, he asked, "Are you here for the first time or for the second time?" ”

The scholar said, "This is the first time I have come." The monk said, "Eat tea." ”

Another scholar came to see him, and he asked, "Are you coming for the first time or for the second time?" ”

The scholar said, "This is the second time I have come." He said, "Eat tea." ”

At that time, the owner of the courtyard stood next to him and didn't understand, so he asked him: "The first time I came, I asked him to eat tea, and when the guests and hosts met, there was a politeness, and they could eat tea." The second time I came, I wasn't a guest, so why did I still go for tea? ”

The monk called the name of the master teacher, and the master agreed to him. He said, "You can also eat tea." ”

What a high art this is! In this kind of ease, he shows us the general idea of the Dharma. It's not like I'm sitting in this place and delaying everyone for so much time, talking about it endlessly. How much does it actually work? I doubt it myself. Because I don't even have the qualifications to be a student of that monk, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Zen is the art of our life, and the life of a Zen master and Zen practitioner is an artistic life. Zen is also a way of life, what is this way of life? Everything is ready-made. Each of us is hungry and sleepy. In this way, aren't we all practicing? Wrong. When we eat, there are all kinds of differences: this one is delicious and this one is not delicious, this one is sour, this one is spicy, this one is sweet, and this one is bitter. When we sleep, we are also thinking in every way, tossing and turning and unable to sleep, unable to sleep and insisting on sleeping. That's not sleeping, that's struggling; That's not eating, it's eating. This dish is spicy, this is yuba, which can also be eaten, has been separated. The Zen man's way of life, like his approach to all issues, transcends duality and lives without distinction. Generally speaking, we have not reached that level of this way of life of Zen practitioners, so we must not imitate it. It's bad if you imitate it, because you don't have that kind of state, you don't have that kind of use. Your imitation is just imitation. In short, Zen is an art of life, a way of life, the embodiment of the life of the wise and the enlightened, and the connotation of the life of the enlightened and the doer.

Sixth, Zen is eternal happiness, true happiness. The ultimate goal of Zen is to attain eternal happiness and true happiness. Zen is the enjoyment of coolness and ease, the perfection that transcends all opposites, the great freedom from life and death, and the ultimate freedom of nirvana, which can release all the vitality inherent in life. We ourselves have all kinds of merits and wisdom such as the Buddha's ten powers, the four fearlessness, and the perfection of the three bodies, so why can't we manifest them? Because it is covered with the dust of ignorance and delusion. As long as we meditate on the method and through the transcendent experience of becoming a Buddha by directly pointing to the human mind, we will be able to release some of the energy and vitality inherent in our lives, and finally we will be able to truly liberate the ten worlds without hindrance. If you have a fate, you will live, and if you don't have a fate, you will go, and you will be happy and affectionate.

The ultimate goal of Zen is the same as that of all the teachings, but the approach is different. All the Dharma that is taught is not directed at it, but indirectly, step by step. Zen should be in place in one step, and it should go straight to the point. This is the difference between Zen and all the teachings of Buddhism. In order to attain this kind of eternal happiness, true happiness, Zen can be achieved in an instant if you are a person who is wise and wise. Those who have bad roots should not be imitated casually. Because the person with the root machine is also a kind of accumulation, and the person with the root machine is not enough to accumulate. It's the same as doing business, a big business needs a lot of silver dollars, and a person with a lot of money in his pockets agrees to come down at once, buys it and does it, and he has accumulation. On the surface, this is a pause, one step in place, but his hard work is ahead, which is the result of the accumulation of the past in the past life. For people who don't have enough accumulation, people who don't have enough capital, it's not easy to do a three-two-run business, so you can only take your time, and the same is true for cultivation. Therefore, we have to cultivate good roots, build good karma, and sow good fields, so that our good karma will continue to accumulate and expand, and we will continue to cultivate our good causes and good karma.

It's getting late, so that's all for today's talk of "what Zen is?" Finally, I would like to share with you a poem that is very popular in the north:

The smoke and rain of Lushan and the tide of Zhejiang have not yet arrived.

As for the return, there was nothing to do, and the smoke and rain in Lushan were in Zhejiang.

Everything is ready-made, and to put it mildly, it's just a process.