Case 8: Eyebrows

After talking to his students all summer, Ts'ui Yen asked them to look and see if his eyebrows were still there. This is Zen in code. An old Zen idiom says that if you talk too much about what can't be described with words, your eyebrows will fall out. The teacher was really asking his students 'if they got it?', IT being some understanding of the great matter of living and dying that exists outside of words and concepts. He was also demonstrating that even though you can't talk about it, you have to talk about it in order to encourage people to sit still and discover their true mind.

If you train in Zen, you quickly learn that although teachers talk and the dharma is vast and profound, most of Zen is learned through activity and experience. It is learned by being around others with a deep practice, and through meditation and mindfulness to activity. Dharma teachings are transmitted through bows, washing rice, cleaning up, walking, chanting; namely, by learning to bring benefit to all activities through selfless engagement with the world. You also learn if you train in Zen about the vigorousness of it, that you pour all of your heart and spirit into whatever you are doing. This is the spirit of Zen that no words can convey.

I like watching skilled workmen. Once I spent an hour watching a man from Mexico dig with a shovel. He wouldn't force the shovel into the ground, he would work the tip in a pattern while digging shallowly and patiently, an ancient rhythm to it. He never lost his balance, and the shovel seemed to extend right out of his core. His digging was a natural extension of his being there with the earth and the shovel, as if they belonged together in a harmonious dance. Scrape scrape scrape dig dig dig shovel shovel shovel, the beat of life, the sound of earth, iron tools meeting the still center of things. He never got ahead of himself, never rushed, and never looked like he was proud of what he was doing. He was working, living, breathing. All was right with the world. He was a fine teacher for me.

don't be fooled by words
pick up a shovel
and be found