Chiyono

[Guest guest]

It was a full moon night. The earth was looking like a bride. Light was

showering like rain, and there was great delight in the sky, in the ocean, in

the wind. The trees were swaying in the wind as if drunk, intoxicated, lost, and

the faraway mountains with their snow-covered peaks looked like Buddhas in deep

meditation. The wind passing through the ancient pines was pure music, and the

quality of a dancing universe was so solid and so tangible that one could have

almost touched it.

 

And on such a night of sheer joy and benediction, something of the beyond

descended on the earth. A rare woman, Chiyono, became enlightened. She regained

paradise. She came home. What a moment to die in time, and to time, and be born

in eternity, as eternity! What a moment to disappear utterly, and be for the

first time.

 

The nun Chiyono studied for years, but was unable to find enlightenment. One

night she was carrying an old pail filled with water. As she was walking along,

she was watching the full moon reflected in the pail of water. Suddenly, the

bamboo strips that held the pail together broke and the pail fell apart. The

water rushed out, the moon's reflection disappeared, and Chiyono became

enlightened.

 

She wrote this verse:

 

This way and that way

I tried to keep the pail together,

Hoping the weak bamboo would never break.

 

Suddenly the bottom fell out....

No more water,

No more moon in the water,

Emptiness in my hand.

 

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