PZI Teacher Archives

Huineng's Original Face (GG23)

KOAN:

Quickly, without thinking good or evil, what is your original face before your parents were born?

—Gateless Gate, Case 23

Text August 6, 2020

Knock on Any Door – Daoist Masters & Zen Koans

John Tarrant

Whatever your condition is, you can see the “I have joy.” Out of that emptiness, out of what seems unpromising—the dark material, the valley spirit, the enigma, out of the mystery, out of what I don’t understand—it just appears. The joy just appears.

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