The Teaching Is Upside Down (BCR15)
KOAN:
Then the student asked Yunmen, “But when it’s not the things I can see, and it’s not what the things are doing, what is it?”
Yunmen said, “Say it upside down.”
-Blue Cliff Record, Case 15
We and everything we perceive are interwoven and not interwoven, and this interweaving continues on and on, while each thing stands in its own place.
—Shitou Xiqian
KOAN:
Then the student asked Yunmen, “But when it’s not the things I can see, and it’s not what the things are doing, what is it?”
Yunmen said, “Say it upside down.”
-Blue Cliff Record, Case 15