Meeting the Poet Li Ji

Text

The poet-official Li Ji visited Yaoshan and asked, "What is the Way?" Yaoshan pointed upward and then downward and said, "Do you understand?" Li Ji said, "No." Yaoshan said, "The clouds in the sky, the water in the jug." Li Ji composed a verse in praise. Yaoshan glanced at it and said, "The clouds in the sky and the water in the jug—you have written about them very well. But where is the one who pointed up and then down?" Li Ji could make no reply.

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Speaker
  Yaoshan Weiyan

Lineage: Qingyuan line

By Yaoshan Weiyan

• Don't Thinkdialogue
• The Arrow on Highdialogue
• Thinking of Not-Thinkingdialogue

From Jingde Chuandenglu

• On Gradual Cultivation
• Watch the Mind
• On Sudden Enlightenment
• The Debate at Huatai
• Before Thinking Arises
• The One Who Has No Rank
• The Arrow on High
• Just This Is It
• Cold Ashes, Dead Tree
• The Encounter with Linji

Sources

• contentZen Editorial Overlay - Originals Curation

  Zen project editorial

  Jingde Chuandenglu, Vol. 14, Yaoshan Weiyan chapter

  Jingde Chuandenglu: Meeting the Poet Li Ji