25Each of You Has It示眾

師示眾云：「各自有禪，各自有道。忽有人問你：『作麼生是禪是道？』作麼生祇對他？」僧乃問：「既各有禪道，從上至今語話為什麼？」師云：「為你遊魂。」學云：「未審如何為人？」師乃退身不語。

Zhaozhou addressed the assembly: "Every one of you has Zen. Every one of you has the Way. Suppose someone walks up and asks, 'What is Zen? What is the Way?' How will you answer him?"

A monk asked, "If we all already have Zen and the Way, then what have the teachers been talking about all this time, right up to now?"

Zhaozhou said, "Because you're a wandering ghost."

The monk asked, "Then how should one work with people?"

Zhaozhou stepped back and said nothing.

Pointer

"Every one of you has the Way already" is Zhaozhou's constant text, and the monk lands the obvious objection on it: if we already own it, what have centuries of teachers been talking about? "Wandering ghost" is the answer with the sting left in. A ghost is restless, never home, drifting from place to place looking for what it can't lack, which is exactly the monk chasing teachings instead of noticing what is his. Then the monk asks the live question, how do you actually teach a thing nobody can be given, and Zhaozhou steps back and shuts his mouth. Say one more word and you have handed it over as an object, turning the Way back into something to chase. The silence is the only honest demonstration left. What would you have done in his place, with the floor and a roomful of ghosts waiting?