When he was no more, he returned to the master

and without striking the gong he sat down and bowed.

He was not saying anything

and there was silence.

Then the master said: So you have heard the sound without sound!

230. Love.

Thought is divisive,

it divides ad infinitum,

so thought can never come to the total, to the whole.

And the whole is while the parts are not –

or they are only for the mind –

and if there is no mind then there are no parts.

With the mind and because of the mind

the one becomes many – or appears so;

and with the mind and through the mind,

to conceive the one is impossible.

Of course it can think about the one,

but that one is nothing but a putting together of all the parts,

and that one is quite different from the one which is.

The one which is conceptualized by the mind

is just a mathematical construct:

it is not a living whole,

it is not organic,

and unless one experiences the cosmos as

an organic whole

one has not known anything at all.

This is not possible with thought,

but this is possible with no-thought.

231. Love.

Emptiness is all –

and to get hold of emptiness is to attain all and be all.

But it is very arduous to get hold of emptiness –

because it is emptiness! And it hurts much –

though it is emptiness, it still hurts much!

Because to make way for it the ego has to die.

But I am happy that you are dying

because this is the only way to be beyond death –

I say: the only way.

Remember this always.

Sekkyo once said to one of his monks:

Can you get hold of emptiness?

I will try, said the monk; and he cupped his hands in the air.

That is absurd, said Sekkyo.

You have not got anything in there.

Well, master, said the monk, please show me the right way.

Thereupon Sekkyo seized the monk’s nose and gave it a great yank.

Ouch! yelled the monk. You hurt me!

I cannot help it,

because that is the only way to get hold of emptiness!

said Sekkyo.

232. Love.

Man asks questions and then answers them himself.

Nothing is answered in this way.

But man is capable of deceiving himself –

and the whole of philosophy

is nothing but such a deception.

Man asks: What is mind?

And then answers himself: Not matter?

And then asks: What is matter?

And then answers: Not mind?

And this stupid game goes on.

I have heard about a distinguished philosopher

who always began his speeches with: Why are we here?

He had occasion to address the inmates

of a mental hospital

and ended with: Ladies and Gentlemen, why are we here?

One of the inmates called out:

We are all here because we are not all there!

233. Love.

The mind always thinks in terms of the self.

It is egocentric.

During the French revolution

a man from Paris stopped at a village

and was asked by a friend what was happening.

They are cutting off heads by the thousands,

said the visitor.

How terrible! cried the villager.

That could ruin my hat business!

But this is the way of the mind,

and because of this it is never in tune with the cosmos,

so how can it know life?

It cannot know it because it cannot be one with it.

Really with the mind there is no knowing

but only superficial acquaintance.

Intimate and deep knowing comes only with no-mind –

and meditation is the dissolving of mind into no-mind.

234. Love.

A monk asked Hyakujo Yekai:

What is the most miraculous event in the world?