"The other part, he is not saying. The other part cannot be said. Only those who enter the experience know the other part.

"The first part can be said: that the old is gone. We all know the old, but the new we don't know. So when the new comes, it brings a problem: you can say what has been ruined, what has been shattered, what has been taken away, but you cannot say what have you got. On that point there is utter silence.

"That's why he is talking about only one part of it, the first part. The second part has to be experienced. The second part is finding your real home. The second part is finding your original face. The second part is finding your eternity. But these are mere words if not experienced. Experienced, they are the only true realities.

"Everything depends on experience. Zen is experiential. It is not a talk about great things, it is not a philosophy. It is a very simple and obvious phenomenon – just to look in. What can be more simple? As you look in, a totally new world opens its doors and your old language becomes irrelevant. All that you can say is, the old is finished.

"The new is discontinuous with the old. Neither the language nor any gesture, nothing can manage the new in the form that the old allows.

"The new brings its own language.

"The new brings its own home.

"The new brings your ultimate reality.

"I said that Joshu was a rare case…. Maneesha has brought one anecdote:

On first entering Nansen's monastery, Joshu was made to serve in the kitchen as the stoker. One day he closed all the doors and piled wood on the fire until the whole kitchen was filled with smoke. Then he shouted, 'Fire! Fire! Come to my rescue!'

"Symbolically, this is the situation of everyone. You live in fire and you die in fire. Your heart is always on fire, burning with all kinds of jealousies and anger and greed – a psychological fire that goes on creating new anxieties, new wounds, and it never heals on its own. Joshu's effort, his first effort in the commune of Nansen, was to create a great fire and close all the doors of the kitchen."