14th January

While staying at a shrine, master Tan-hsia was feeling cold,
so he took a wooden statue of the Buddha off the altar and
threw it into the fire. The keeper of the shrine was
dismayed and angry. In response, the master began looking
among the ashes. "What are you doing?" Enquired the
keeper of the Shrine. "Looking for holy relics in the ashes,"
replied that the master. "You won't find them in the ashes of
wooden statue," said the keeper. "If that is so," the master
concluded, "can I have another couple of Buddha's for the
fire to keep me warm?"

Just like the text for yesterday, this also illustrates how the human conscious mind will project words and images onto 3-D representations of a concept, and then regard those words and images as representing that which they choose to define. This is of course flawed. The statues in the text were nothing more than pieces of wood, carved in the image of the Buddha. The keeper of the shrine regarded these mere pieces of wood as the Buddha, and felt indignation at their destruction. The Zen master saw them for what they were, which was just pieces of wood.