22 Feb Koan 8

What is it now?*

One day, a Zen master with a clay pot on a wooden table before him asked several students: “What is this?”

Some said it was a clay pot. Another said that it was an artifact. Another said it was an assemblage of clay and wood. Soon there were other perspectives as well. A lively debate ensued, while the Zen master shook his head and laughed.

One student approached the table and threw the pot to the ground, shattering it into many pieces. An audible silence enveloped the room, until the student asked: “What is it now?”

Silence again filled the room. Some students were shocked and others embarrassed by the aggressive arrogance of the student who shattered their master’s clay pot. Then the silence was shattered by laughter from the Zen master and the student.

The Zen master and student laughed as they recognized the other students were like the blind men in the “Ten Men and the Elephant” parable. Each certain of a their individual identification of the pot and the collective view that breaking the pot was disrespectful.

A pot is a pot, temporarily. All things are ever-changing. The pot cannot be described, as it is different now than it was in the now upon which the description is based. Those who know it can only say that it is what it is whatever it is.

*Courtesy of Bill Wisher.