The Sky and the Clouds

My teaching before you is like those gentle clouds that National Master Huichong spoke of. I cannot teach as the sky because you wouldn’t understand. So I teach as clouds – soft, gentle clouds. The clouds of language hang gently in my sky, and when you leave, the clouds disperse. It’s beautiful. You sit here listening attentively, and I speak, telling truly interesting stories. I too am enjoying this. Our lecture time is gentle and peaceful.

National Master Huichong was someone who had already escaped Earth’s gravitational pull, as if riding a satellite, during the Tang Dynasty. He lived in Chang’an, the capital of China at the time. While staying close to the emperor, he offered many teachings.

Yet he lived a completely different life from others. Other people were all caught within Earth’s gravitational pull. But he didn’t live that way. Everyone else lived under the clouds, entangled in the clouds of their thoughts. But he lived above the clouds. The clouds of thought flowed beneath his feet. This made him immensely free. Although Suzong was emperor, he had to look up at the patch of cloud in the sky. But the Master said:

‘It hangs there so softly and gently.’

He lived looking down at the clouds. But you carry clouds on your head. You live clinging to clouds. You live entangled in clouds, holding onto them. Living while cherishing clouds, waiting for new clouds, dreaming of beautiful rainbow clouds, buried in clouds. You live in anxiety, under the clouds. Break free from the clouds. Clear away the clouds and see the vast sky. Become the sky yourself. Then a new life will unfold where you can walk on clouds in the vast sky. Then you will see the clouds hanging softly and gently.

The empty sky is silent. The blue sky is always simply blue. The sky never squints with judgment. The sky is not something to squint at. If you spit at the sky, the spittle falls back on your own face. The sky returns everything. It returns good as good, and when bad comes, it returns as bad. The sky doesn’t form judgments. Everything simply passes through it.

Suzong raised a judgment and questioned the Master. That was Suzong’s question. His question simply passed through the Master. The emperor was displeased. His judgment raised clouds. The Master answered by becoming the sky. He simply returned what had come.

‘I am the Son of Heaven of a great nation, yet why does the Master not turn to look at me?’

If he was emperor, he should have simply remained as emperor. One who says ‘I am emperor’ is not a true emperor. A genuine emperor needs neither to insist upon, assert, nor confirm the fact that he is emperor. Yet Suzong insisted:

‘I am the Son of Heaven of a great nation…’

Those who insist find their own taste bitter. They make it bitter themselves. The Master is saying:

‘It is only you who feels things as bitter or sweet. Things themselves are neither bitter nor sweet. It is only your tongue that distinguishes ‘bitter’ and ‘sweet’ – apples are never sour, and coffee is never bitter in itself.’