A Non-Buddhist Questions the Buddha

Recorded on February 10, 2024.

Roshi Rafe Martin explores Case 32 from The Gateless Barrier - A Non-Buddhist Questions the Buddha (also known as The Buddha Responds to an Outsider).

An outsider asked the World-Honored One, “I do not ask for the spoken; I do not ask for the unspoken.” The World-Honored One just sat still.  |  The outsider praised him, saying, “The World-Honored One with his great compassion and mercy has opened the clouds of my delusion and enabled me to enter the Way.” He then made bows and took his leave.  |  Ānanda asked, “What did that outsider realize to make him praise you?”  | The World-Honored One said, “He is like the fine horse who runs even at the shadow of the whip.”

Referenced:

• Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen
• “Genjokoan” (“Manifesting Suchness”) Shobogenzo, Eihei Dogen.
• “The Place Where We Are Right,” poem by Yehuda Amichai
• Case 84 from the Blue Cliff Record  — “Vimalakirti’s Gate of Non-Duality”

• Books by Roshi Rafe Martin
• Talks on YouTube
• More information at endlesspathzen.org