On transmission

Once, in ancient times, when the World-Honored One was at Mount Grdhrakūta, he twirled a flower before his assembled disciples. All were silent. Only Mahākāśyapa broke into a smile. The World-Honored One said, “I have the eye treasury of right Dharma, the subtle mind of nirvana, the true form of no-form, and the flawless gate of the teaching. It is not established upon words and phrases. It is a special transmission outside tradition. I now entrust this to Mahākāśyapa.”

It’s so narrow, there’s nowhere to land. It’s so broad, you can’t fall off. It's not good or bad, old or new, big or small, yours or mine. It has no inside or outside, no beginning or end, no life or death. It can't be lost or gained and it doesn't change or remain the same. See it directly by asking sincerely, with the eyes of a new born baby, “What is this?” But don’t go groping for an answer. It’s nearer than the question. The feeling in your fingers and toes already knows.

The foundation of Zen is no foundation. Non-fixation. Not established or not established; ‘establishing’ doesn’t establish anything and ‘not establishing’ won’t avoid establishment; it ends up as trying to establish ‘non-establishment' when, already, nothing is established. Holding up a flower: it points by not pointing. What if the Buddha had farted instead? Even the words ‘holding up a flower’ are the direct expression of what all the teachings of all the Buddhas and ancestors are pointing to. But the direct expression is not transmissible or, for that matter, expressible. So there are bib-like garments to catch the drool of the babbling fools who compromise the Dharma for the sake of sentient beings.

Face to face with the teacher, we attune, through the body, to our fundamental alignment with reality. ‘Special transmission’? —rail me, Buddha. ‘The ineffable’ sounds awfully special too. "I have the eye treasury of right Dharma, the subtle mind of nirvana, the true form of no-form, and the flawless gate of the teaching. It is not established upon words and phrases. It is a special transmission outside tradition. I now entrust this to Mahakashyapa." The unbound unobstructed twirling of a flower; dog farts, diarrhea, War in the Ukraine.