On the Kanzan Tradition

Text

A student asked Muin: 'The Kanzan line at Myōshin-ji is said to be purer than the Daitō line at Daitoku-ji. What do you say?' Muin said: 'Kanzan Egen was a great monk. So was Daitō Kokushi. They drank from the same spring in China and came back and poured it into different jars. The water is the same. Whether the jar is purer — go ask the jar.' Student: 'Then what is the teaching of this line?' Muin: 'The teaching of this line is to stop asking lines to teach you.'

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Speaker
  Muin Soin

Lineage: Rinzai

By Muin Soin

• The One Mattersaying

From Daitoku-ji Temple Records

• The One Matter

Sources

• contentZen Buddhism: A History, Volume 2 — Japan

  Heinrich Dumoulin (trans. James W. Heisig & Paul Knitter)

  Cf. Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, Vol. 2, pp. 160–164, on the Daitō-Daitoku-ji tradition

  Daitoku-ji Temple Records: On the Kanzan Tradition