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The Missing Sandal →
43 No Tomb for Me見起塔乃有頌
本自圓成，何勞疊石。名邈雕鐫，與吾懸隔。若人借問，終不指畫。
Whole in itself all along.
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One of the short verses that close the record. When a famous Chan teacher died, students built a stupa, a stone tower holding the ashes, often carved with the master's name and likeness so people could come pay respects. Zhaozhou watches one going up and tells them not to bother. The "you" everyone wants to fix in stone was never a thing you could pin down to begin with, whole all along with nothing missing, so a tower with a face on it has nothing to do with him. The last line is the point: ask where he really is and he will point at nothing, not the tomb, not the body, not anywhere, because there is no spot to aim a finger at. Fitting last word from the man who spent a whole book refusing to let himself be turned into an object.
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