The monk said, “The stone turtle has spoken!”

These dialogues are immensely beautiful, a totally different kind of play than a Socratic dialogue or Martin Luther’s dialogues. The monk thought himself competent enough to answer the question he himself has raised. But you cannot deceive a master.

The monk said, “The stone turtle has spoken!”

Now, if Ryuge had been just a teacher, he would have been embarrassed about what to say. But Ryuge was an authentic master.

Ryuge said, “What did it say to you?”
The monk was silent.

Now he found that he is not competent to have a dialogue with a master, with an enlightened person…and he cannot deceive. Anyway, whom you are going to deceive except yourself.

One of Daibai’s monks asked his master the same question,
to which Daibai replied, “His coming has no meaning.”

The question is the same. The masters are different. The answers apparently are different, but not truly.

Daibai said:

“His coming has no meaning.”

Meaning is always part of the mind. Without mind, there is no meaning, there is only silence. There is significance, there is beauty, there is dance, there is music, but no meaning. Mind is meaning: no-mind is no meaning.

One of the names of Gautam Buddha is tathagata. It has many connotations. One of them is worth remembering at this point. It means, “Came thus, gone thus” – just like a breeze. You don’t ask, “What is the meaning of the breeze coming and then going away?” You know the breeze has no-mind, hence you cannot ask the question.

Daibai said:

“His coming has no meaning.”