Later, Issan requested Gyosan, “What’s the that means of Obaku’s beating the superintendent?” Gyosan stated, “The true robber ran off; the pursuer obtained the stick.”
Commentary:
Within the Zen group a robber, or a thief symbolises an enlightened individual, who is believed to have attained the universe for nothing with out being seen. So, in Gyosan’s phrases ‘The true robber ran off; the pursuer obtained the stick’, the actual robber implies Rinzai who grasped Obaku’s intention, and the pursuer the superintendent who, not aware of Obaku’s intention, thought that Obaku had hit him together with his stick. He was deceived by the illusions that Obaku had made as expedient to disclose the true-Self.
Scholar: “Are you a robber, too?”
Grasp: “No robber thinks that he himself is a robber. Solely a robber can recognise a robber.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All photographs ©Simon Hathaway
