I have heard that the nun Chiyono studied for years and meditated for years on the ultimate questions of existence but was unable to find the light. The thinking was filling her so much that she could not be a passage to the divine. She was so much filled by herself that she could not be a host to the divine guest, and the more she longed for enlightenment the more far off it was.
But one moonlit night she was carrying an old pail filled with water - and the thing happened! She was watching the full moon reflected in her pail water when the bamboo drip that held the pail staves broke. The pail fell all apart, the water rushed out, the moon's reflection disappeared - and with it disappeared Chiyono herself.
She was not --but the enlightenment was there!
She wrote this verse:
this way and that way
I tried to keep the pail together
hoping the weak bamboo would never break
But one moonlit night she was carrying an old pail filled with water - and the thing happened! She was watching the full moon reflected in her pail water when the bamboo drip that held the pail staves broke. The pail fell all apart, the water rushed out, the moon's reflection disappeared - and with it disappeared Chiyono herself.
She was not --but the enlightenment was there!
She wrote this verse:
this way and that way
I tried to keep the pail together
hoping the weak bamboo would never break
but suddenly the bottom fell out
no more water
no more moon in the water
no more moon in the water
and emptiness in my hand!
Be empty and you will know. Be empty and you will be the mirror. Oh, only total nothingess is capable fo knowing all!
