The Wine Jar and the Dharma

Text

Vasumitra was known to frequent wine shops without drinking wine, appearing in the midst of ordinary life. When Mīcaka found him and asked: 'You dwell among the impure—how is your mind?' Vasumitra said: 'You are the one who judges pure and impure. My mind judges nothing.' Mīcaka said: 'And the Dharma?' Vasumitra said: 'It has been sitting here in the wine shop all along.' Keizan's verse: The master enters the wine shop / and the wine shop becomes a monastery. / Not because he purifies it— / he simply sees what was always there.

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Speaker
  Vasumitra

Lineage: Indian Patriarchs

From Denkoroku

• The Robe That Never Wears Out
• The Fragrance Without a Flower
• The Mind That Is Like Space
• The Auspicious Cloud
• The Star That Does Not Move
• Entering the Gate as a Householder
• The Vow of Pārśva
• The Debate That Ended Without Debate
• Meeting Nāgārjuna
• In Praise of the Perfection of Wisdom

Sources

• contentZen Editorial Overlay - Originals Curation

  Zen project editorial

  Denkoroku, Case 8

  Denkoroku: The Wine Jar and the Dharma