The Woodcutter Who Asked Zen

He was a woodcutter. Illiterate, never read a single sutra, couldn't even write his own name. The world mocked him: 'A barbarian, worthy of discussing Buddha?' He didn't argue, just smiled. Until one day, he heard a line of scripture on the street: 'Give rise to the mind that abides nowhere.' It was like a light splitting the eternal darkness. He put down his load of firewood and walked three thousand miles to seek an answer. The most renowned master in the land asked him: 'You are from Lingnan, a barbarian—how can you be fit to become a Buddha?' He said: 'Though people are divided into north and south, Buddha-nature has no north or south.' One sentence shook the entire monastery. From then on—persecution by fellow disciples, struggle for the robe and bowl, fleeing for his life, hiding among hunters, refining his heart in the mundane world... An illiterate woodcutter spent his life telling the world: Buddha is not in the mountains, not in the scriptures, not in years of ascetic practice. Buddha is only in—your original mind. 'The Mind Itself Is Buddha'—by Yixizi.