"But there was a reason to be disrespectful: Ta Hui was an intellectual, he was a man of mind. And all the people who are confined to their minds are bound to be offended by men like Gautam Buddha, whose whole insistence is that mind is wrong and no-mind is right.

"All intellectuals are bound to condemn such an attitude, just to defend themselves. They don't know anything about no-mind; they know only what mind is. But they have achieved honors, respectability, prestige and power through the mind, and anybody who says that mind is not a power but a bondage, that mind is not a prestige but sheer stupidity, that mind is not your honor but simply an indication that you belong to the lowest of human beings…The real power belongs to the man of no-mind; hence, intellectuals always have felt offended by the mystics.

"Ta Hui started his journey as an intellectual. Although he was part of a tradition that was created by Bodhidharma in China in the name of Gautam Buddha, somewhere in his unconscious there was a vengefulness which was coming up again and again in sarcastic remarks like, 'the old pale face,' 'the barbarian.' To call Gautam Buddha a barbarian is such nonsense, and in time he must have realized what he had done. Now he wants to put things right, but he is in such a hurry to put things right that he starts misreading things – with all good intentions. Remembering this, you have to understand what he is saying:

A monk asked Chao Chou, 'Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?'

"It is an ancient strategy. It is not only Chao Chou who has been asked; thousands of other masters since Gautam Buddha have been asked the same question, and the disciples have been receiving the same answer. The answer has always been 'Yes,' because Gautam Buddha had answered 'Yes.' The same question was asked to him: 'Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?' – because he was teaching that all beings have buddha-nature. It is very natural to ask, 'All beings…? You mean dogs and donkeys and buffaloes? Do you really mean all beings?'

"If he was saying all human beings, then too it would be questionable."