Wallace Stevens & Zen
<p>Numerous stories in the Zen classics tell of great critics undone by meetings with Zen adepts.¹ The story of Tokusan is one of these. Tokusan, reported to have been one of the greatest interpreters of the Diamond Sutra, once encountered an old woman selling tea. She asked about the large bundle he was carrying on his back, and he explained it was his commentary on the sutra, written after many years of work. She reminded him of a passage in the sutra which says, “The past mind cannot be held, the present mind cannot be held, and the future mind cannot be held.” Then she asked with which mind he proposed to take the tea. Tokusan was flummoxed, and he soon took up study with the Zen master Ryutan. Some years later, it is reported, Tokusan burned his commentaries.</p>
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