A master wrote a verse for the disciples to study Buddhism,
“Two men are walking in the endless drizzle, but the rain does not soak one of them.”
The disciples got into a discussion as they received the topic.
The first disciple said, “One of the two men who are walking in the rain doesn’t get soaked because he is wearing a raincoat.”
The second disciple said, “It is a shower in a small area. Sometimes even the horseback in such a shower is partly wet and partly dry. It is hardly surprising that two men are walking in the rain while one of them doesn’t get wet.”
The third disciple said proudly, “You get it all wrong. Obviously it is a drizzle rather than a shower. One of them must be walking under the roof.”
In this way, they exchanged ideas. It seemed that they all had a point, and the discussion never ended.
At last, noticing that the time had come, the master unveiled the mystery. He said,
“You are all stuck on the topic that the rain does not soak one man. It has gone too far. No wonder the debate never stops. That is why you are drifting away from the truth. In fact, ‘the rain does not soak one man’ is just another way of saying ‘the rain soaks both men’, isn’t it?”
Therefore, we should not experience Chan by focusing too much on questions but the other way around. There are thousands of analects on Chan and they all seem to be catechetical. Actually sometimes a question does not need to be answered and vice versa. Arguments are caused by questions and answers instead of by self-enlightenment. Answering the question is not like guessing the riddle. Will there still be arguments after the answer is given?
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