When a monk named Hui Ch'ao asked Fa Yen "What is Buddha", he answered "You are Hui Ch'ao". This answer tipped the universe on its ear. Suzuki Roshi simply said "When you are you, Zen is Zen". Same thing. There is no room for explanation in this koan. The only path is the one in which you become yourself. The nuances of being yourself are as vast as the ocean, as wide as sky, as deep as a bottomless well. The question a Zen student faces is how to practice so that you know yourself through and through.
I was listening to my pet cockatiel's enchanted singing the other day, and marveling at the beautiful orange circles on his cheeks. I was wondering about his life, what it is like being him, what he sees. How does he know himself? Since Zippers (my bird) doesn't have self-reflexive awareness, the ability to have consciousness of the self, the whole world is who he is. He has never been separate from anything. In this non duality he is just himself. He is everything. He is also a cockatiel with orange cheeks.
A Zen teacher was sitting by a pool of fish. A boy came up and asked who he was. He said he was the fish. The boy said "You aren't the fish!". The teacher said "Since you aren't me, how can you know I'm not the fish?"! And so it goes. What is Buddha? Other questions cover the same ground: what is limitless freedom? what is dropping body and mind? what is outside of thought? what is your true and universal nature? who shops, cooks, and cleans?
Mouth closed
Eyes wide open
Nothing to grasp
Case 7: What is Buddha?
