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.