Wednesday, August 28, 2002

Q. Where's this road going?


A. I've been living here all my life and it ain't budged yet.


This is a story translated by Paul Reps in his collection Zen Flesh Zen Bones.


The Buddhist nun Ryonen was born in 1797. Before she was a nun, she was so beautiful the monks refused to let her into the monasteries, so she burned her own face in order to be allowed to become a disciple. On her deathbed she wrote:

Sixty-six times have these eyes beheld the changing


scene of autumn


I have said enough about moonlight,


Ask no more.


Only listen to the voice of pines and cedars when no


wind stirs.




The zen koan in its entirety is: Ryonen's Clear Realization.

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