"It blossoms in many forms, in many colors; it dances in many ways and in many forms, but hidden behind is the same eternal principle.

"Zen does not belong to the ordinary category of religions either, because it has no theology, no God, no nonsense questions which have troubled people for centuries. It has reduced the whole religiousness to a single point within you. These anecdotes again and again enforce and reinforce the same point. Remember, the ultimate is within you but it is not within your mind. It is beyond the mind but within you.

"Mind is a small corner in you, a small mechanism – useful, if you understand its ways of working; otherwise dangerous because it tends to take possession of you, becomes the master, and leads you into the ways of power, money and prestige. And you are lost in a jungle of desires, longings; you live thirsty and you die thirsty, while the source of all fulfillment was within you.

"Zen cuts all nonsense out. It is twenty-four-carat gold, no mixture. That makes it very simple and also very difficult. Difficult, because the simple is the most difficult thing in the world to understand. Simple because it does not require you to do anything at all. Just sitting silently, settling within yourself, and you have arrived at the place which is your home and has been always your home. It is your very being.

"Remember, whatever the anecdote, the basic principle is always pointing to the same thing.

Tozan asked a monk, 'What is the most miserable condition in the world?'

"Of course, the monk could not understand the question. He said,

'Hell is the most miserable.'

"That is a theological answer. And Zen is not a theology, there is no concern about hell or heaven. What Master Tozan is asking is something else. 'What is the most miserable condition in the world?' – to be confined, to be enclosed, to be imprisoned, to be fettered; to lose your freedom, your joy, your blissfulness; to lose yourself in the mundane and forget the sacred.

'No,' said Tozan.

"Hell is out of the question.

'What is the most miserable is to wear this robe'

"