This moment you are also just emptiness.

No knowing.

Pure innocence.

But to go on remembering it is the only problem. You don’t have to do anything, except to continue to remember that you are where you are, that you are what you are; that whatever you do, you can never be anywhere else, anybody else; that in this simple acceptance of your being, you have achieved all that has been achieved by the great buddhas.

There is no question of way; hence I can say that Joshu has a little understanding, but not much. He says, “The real way is not difficult.”

Joshu spoke to the assembly and said,
“The real way is not difficult.
It only abhors choice and attachment.
With but a single word there may arise choice and attachment or there may arise clarity.
This old monk does not have that clarity.
Do you appreciate the meaning of this or not?”

If you accept the basic assumption that there is a way – it is only a hypothesis – then Joshu is right that the only things that can prevent you from reaching it are judgment, choice, attachment. “With but a single word there may arise choice and attachment or there may arise clarity. This old monk…” – he is referring to himself – “This old monk does not have that clarity.” Only on this point does he reach a height, accepting that “This old monk – he is not using the word I – “this old monk does not have that clarity. Do you appreciate the meaning of this or not?”

He is asking the assembly of the other monks.

Before I discuss the answers of other monks, I would like to repeat again that fundamentally Joshu is absurd. There is no way; hence, the question of its difficulty or easiness does not arise. Because there is no way, there is no question of choice, choicelessness, judgment or no judgment, clarity or cloudedness.

So remember – I was not in the assembly of Joshu, unfortunately, but time makes no difference. What I could not say in his assembly, I am saying in my own:

The way exists not. You are the very goal.

Now have a look to the assembly of Joshu’s disciples…

Then a monk asked, “If you do not have that clarity, what do you appreciate?” Joshu said,
“I do not know that either.”