Case 38: Rinzai instructed his assembly and said, “There is one true person of no rank, always coming out and going in through the gates of your face. Beginners who have not yet witnessed that, look! look!”
Then a monk came out and asked, “What is the one true person of no rank?”
Rinzai descended from the rostrum and grabbed him. The monk hesitated. Rinzai pushed him away and said, “The true person of no rank – what a shit-stick you are!”
Description: Yamada Roshi leaps into Case 38 from the Shoyoroku, Rinzai’s True Person. We learn about Rinzai’s history, Dogen’s attitude toward him and Dogen’s own shifts and changes in understanding over the years of his own practice. In this third teisho from the NASZ sesshin, Roshi continues to illuminate true nature by exploring this celebrated case from the Shoyoroku.
Post Image: true blue, by Bùi Linh Ngân, CC BY 2.0.
Featured Images courtesy Cherie Manifest.