One day, as Hyakujo was visiting his master, Ma Tzu, a flock of wild geese flew overhead. Ma Tzu asked, “What are they?”
“they are wild geese, sir,” said Hyakujo.
“Where are they?” asked the master.
“They have flown away, sir,” replied Hyakujo.
Ma Tzu suddenly took hold of Hyakujo’s nose and twisted it. Overcome with pain, Hyakujo cried out. Ma Tzu said, “You say they have flown away, but all the same they have been here from the very beginning.”
At that moment, Hyakujo attained enlightenment.
The next day, at a regular assembly, Ma Tzu had hardly sat down when Hyakujo came to roll up his mat, which made the master descend from the platform. Hyakujo followed him into his room.
Ma Tzu said, “Just now, before I had begun my sermon, what made you roll up my mat?”
Hyakujo said, “Yesterday your reverence twisted my nose and I felt acute pain.”
“Where did you apply your mind yesterday?” Ma Tzu asked.
All that the disciple said was, “I feel no more pain in the nose today.”
Thereupon the master commented, “You have profoundly understood yesterday’s episode.”

On another occasion, as soon as Ma Tzu sat down on the Zazen bench as usual, he spat.
A monk asked, “Why did you spit?”
Ma Tzu said, “When I sat here, there were mountains, rivers, and the whole natural universe in front of me. I spat because I didn’t like that.”
The monk said, “But the universe is so splendid! Why don’t you like that?”
Ma Tzu replied, “It may be splendid to you, but it is disgusting to me.”
The monk continued, “What kind of mental state is this?”
Ma Tzu said, “This is the state of a bodhisattva.”

Maneesha, these are some of the great episodes in the history of Zen. They show your realization in your action. When a master acts in a certain way, the disciple spontaneously has to respond, not through thinking, but through his very empty heart.

Zen is ultimately a device, thousands of devices, created by different masters to provoke awakening in you. Reading them one may think they are just anecdotes, stories, puzzles. They are not, they are communications, and communications of the greatest value.

One day, as Hyakujo was visiting his master, Ma Tzu, a flock of wild geese flew overhead. Ma Tzu asked, “What are they?”
“They are wild geese, sir,” said Hyakujo.
“Where are they?” asked the master.
“They have flown away, sir,” replied Hyakujo.
Ma Tzu suddenly took hold of Hyakujo’s nose and twisted it. Overcome with pain, Hyakujo cried out. Ma Tzu said, “You say they have flown away, but all the same they have been here from the very beginning.”
At that moment, Hyakujo attained enlightenment.

To any ordinary rational thinker this will look like an absurd statement. But to a man attuned in meditation, this can become a tremendous awakening point. It is not that Ma Tzu does not know that the geese have flown away. It is not that he does not know that the geese were there. He is not asking for any knowledgeable answer. He is asking for the response which Hyakujo missed in the beginning, when Ma Tzu asked him, “What are they?” Obviously Ma Tzu knows what they are.

So remember, it is not a question or inquiry about knowing the object. At this point Hyakujo missed. His response was through the mind; he said, “They are wild geese, sir.”

That would be the response of anybody else in the whole world. It is not out of the empty heart. It is not out of the mirror of nothingness. It is just…any child would say it. The answer is right, but Hyakujo’s response was not through the heart, it was through the mind.