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Shitou's Turn Your Light Inwards

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KOAN:

Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.

—from Shitou Xiqian’s Song of the Grass Hut

Text October 22, 2020

The Nature of Practice

John Tarrant

Koans
Dogen's Turn Your Light Inward, Don't Believe It, Linji's Nothing I Dislike (MK38a), Not Knowing Is Most Intimate (MK62)(BS20), Shitou's Turn Your Light Inwards, Step by Step in the Dark (MK72), The Whole World Is Medicine (BCR87)
Tags
2016 Summer retreat, 2016 Summer Sesshin, bodhisattva path, buddha nature, empathy, koan, light, Linji, moving in the dark, no rank, no-self, not knowing, practice, take the backward step, unlooked-for help
Category
Text

Practice. The notion of practice, as something you embody, and you walk through, and you are—rather than something you add, like something added to gasoline. There’s also a sense of moving in the dark, in some way that’s positive. So that in a practice, “not knowing” is on your side.

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