Note f127 — PRACTICAL METHODS OF ZEN INSTRUCTION

Another time a monk was told, “Hold on to your poverty!” Nan-yin Yegu’s (Nan-yüan Hui-yü) answer to his poverty-stricken monk was more consoling, “You hold a handful of jewels yourself.” The subject of poverty is the all-important one in our religious experience—poverty not only in the material but also in the spiritual sense. Asceticism must have as its ground-principle a far deeper sense than to be merely curving human desires and passions, there must be in it something positive and highly religious. “To be poor in spirit,” whatever meaning it may have in Christianity, is rich in signification for Buddhists, especially for Zen followers. A monk, Sei-jei (Ch‘ing-shi), came to Sozan (Ts‘ao-shan), a great master of the Sōtō school in China, and said, “I am a poor lonely monk: pray have pity on me.” “O monk, come on forward!” Whereupon the monk approached the master, who then exclaimed, “After enjoying three cupfuls of fine chiu (liquor) brewed at Ch‘ing-yüan, do you still protest that your lips are not at all wet?” As to another aspect of poverty, cf. Hsiang-yen’s poem of poverty.