Description
In the speech and silence koan the teacher responds like lightening; there is a seamlessness between call and response.
Summary
A student asked Fengxue, “Both speech and silence are concerned with sameness and difference. How can we transcend them?”
Fengxue said, “I constantly think of Jiangnan in March, where partridges sing among hundreds of fragrant blossoms.”
—Gateless Gate Case 24
Say something without moving your lips or tongue.
—PZI Miscellaneous Koan Case 30b, from Songyuan Chongyue’s Three Turning Words:
Koans go down deep. I may forget about them but then things bubble up inside and appear from the outside. When more images and koans appear, more facets of the situation are illuminated.
In the speech and silence koan the teacher responds like lightening; there is a seamlessness between call and response.
When saying is not a doing the seamlessness happens.
David Weinstein gives a morning dharma talk in Silence: Winter Sesshin on January 30, 2026.
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