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A MONK ONCE ASKED KOKUSHI, "WHAT IS THE TRUE BODY OF THE DHARMAKAYA BUDDHA?"

"FETCH ME THE WATER BOTTLE," RESPONDED KOKUSHI.

WHEN THE MONK BROUGHT IT TO HIM, KOKUSHI SAID, "PUT IT BACK WHERE IT WAS." THE MONK, HAVING DONE WHAT HE WAS ASKED TO DO, REPEATED HIS FORMER QUESTION.

KOKUSHI SAID, "ALAS! THE OLD BUDDHA HAS GONE LONG BEFORE!"

What transpired in this small anecdote?

The monk was asking, "What is the true body, the authentic being, which is called by Buddha, dharmakaya?" Dharma means religiousness, and kaya means body. "What is your body of religiousness?"

The master Kokushi said, instead of answering... Zen does not believe in words. It believes in creating particular devices, situations, in which that which cannot be said at least can be indicated.

To anyone in the world outside the Zen atmosphere, it will look absolutely absurd. The master says, "Fetch me the water bottle."

What kind of answer...?

WHEN THE MONK BROUGHT IT TO HIM, KOKUSHI SAID, "PUT IT BACK WHERE IT WAS."

What he has created as a situation... He asked him to bring the water bottle; when he brought it, Kokushi said, "Now put it back where it was." He is saying, "Return to the source. Go where you have come from. Just search within yourself. What is the space you have sprung out of? Go back to the same space and you will know what is the Dharmakaya Buddha."

THE MONK, HAVING DONE WHAT HE WAS ASKED TO DO, REPEATED HIS FORMER QUESTION.

He could not understand that this device has been the answer. He repeated his former question.

KOKUSHI SAID, "ALAS! THE OLD BUDDHA HAS LONG GONE!

I cannot do more than that. Perhaps the old Buddha may have been able to create another situation for you. Whatever I can do, I have done."

But he has done more than enough. He has shown the way, he has indicated that, "Reach to your original source from where you come. Go back there, and you will find the authentic being, the Dharmakaya of Buddha within you."

Rippo wrote on his death:

MOON AND BLOSSOMS SEEN NOW I GO TO VIEW THE LOVELIEST - THE SNOW.

As I have told you again and again, Zen poems are pictures in words - very colorful, very alive.

MOON AND BLOSSOMS SEEN - I have seen the moon, I have seen the great flowers, NOW I GO TO VIEW THE LOVELIEST - THE SNOW - the purity of white snow.

And when it has never melted... There are peaks in Japan where the snow has never melted, always a white line on the mountaintops. In the Himalayas it is on a far bigger scale, eternal snows which have never melted, and nobody has trodden on those snows. There are thousands of places in the Himalayas where no man has ever reached. The purity of those spaces, the silence of those spaces...

There is a valley in the Himalayas; you can see only from the very top down into the valley, thousands of feet down. There is no way to get to the valley, it is so steep. In that valley, perhaps, blossom the most colorful flowers known to man, but they have been known only from far away. That valley is called "The Valley of Gods" - a beautiful name. Those flowers nobody has ever touched; nobody has ever reached into that depth surrounded by eternal snow.

Rippo says, "I have seen the moon and its beauty; I have seen the blossoms and their colors and their fragrance. Now I am going to view the loveliest - the snow." The pure whiteness - symbolizing the eternal purity of your being.