The Longmen Grottos, carved from fine hard stone between 495 and 750 A. D., were once perhaps the most beautiful Buddhist site in China. Over the centuries, however, they were first defaced during Buddhist persecutions, and then looted to sell to Western museums and collectors. Now the caves remain a tourist attraction, but more than ninety percent of the images are either broken or missing

Addiss, Stephen

Biblioteca Digital de les Illes Balears

PPSN: When you are practicing, uncomfortable thoughts 
and feelings often arise. We are accustomed to running away 
from these things. One way we try to escape when we're alone 
on the cushion is to check ourselves: "Oh, I am no good. I 
should not be thinking. I am a lousy Zen student." Thinking 
about thinking is like putting a head on top of your head. 
Another way of escaping is to look at and judge others. It is 
much more amusing than dealing with our own predicament. 
Q: I saw a book named "If You Meet the Buddha on the 
Road, Kill Him." What does this mean? 
PPSN: Zen means becoming independent. That is the 
Buddha's teaching. Many people, however, become attached 
to teachers, attached to ideas, attached to words. It can be a kind 
of sickness. I heard a story about two friends walking down the 
street One friend fell down, and the other one started to laugh 
So the one who fell down said, "Look, that's not very nice. In 
the Bible it says that even if your enemy falls into adversity, you 
must not laugh, or rejoice. His friend responded, "Yes, of 
course I read that in the Bible, but it doesn't say anything about 
laughing when your friend falls down." That's a joke of course, 
but sadly we do attach to words, usually missing what they point 
at. 
To be independent means that you find for yourself what the 
truth is. Don't just take someone's word for it, no matter how 
famous a person it is. If you attach to someone, you attach to 
someone's ideas, judgments, opinions. So if you meet the 
Buddha on the road you must kill him. Those are good words! 
However, even more importandy, when you meet your own I, 
my, me, kill them. Think of your life as a kind of a laboratory. 
You hear of a good formula Don't accept it automatically. Test 
it in your life. If it really works, dien use it, and teach it to others. 
If it doesn't, throw it out. Kill the Buddha, because you are the 
most important authority. That means that you must become 
Buddha. That means that your practicing is most important. 
Q: Do you mean practicing, as you people do here in this 
room? 
PPSN: Earlier this morning I asked you "What are you?" 
You were stuck, and unable to answer. That is our practice. 
Formal practice, which is what we do twice a day in this room, 
is only a technique, albeit a very important one. We can easily 
talk about keeping a don't know mind, but it is not always easy 
to actually do it. Even ten or fifteen minutes a day of formal 
practice can help us carry that practice into the rest of our life. 
In your daily life, when you are doing somediing, do it one 
hundred percent. Then you are completely awake. If you are 
dreaming, wake up. Good dream or bad dream, dream of the 
past, the present, or die future, it does not matter. Become 
awake! Become an awakened one. Become Buddha. • 
Longmen Grottos 
The Longmen Grottos, carved from fine hard stone 
between 495 and 750 A. D., were once perhaps the 
most beautiful Buddhist site in China. Over the 
centuries, however, they were first defaced during 
Buddhist persecutions, and then looted to sell to 
Western museums and collectors. Now the caves 
remain a tourist attraction, but more than ninety 
percent of the images are either broken or missing. 
Raining so long 
a brash new waterfall bounces down 
past empty niches 
where sharply chiseled 
slender Bodhisattvas 
once meditated silendy 
before the swift Yi River 
Raining so long 
the tourists have left, 
and the huge Tang Buddha 
(too large to have been stolen) 
sits brooding 
over a wet courtyard 
empty but for one single stubborn old woman 
who still hopes to sell her botdes of orange soda 
Raining so long 
the river roars past the caves 
where of all the thousand images 
once carved to bring peace 
to the souls of nuns, courtiers, merchants, soldiers 
and to their ancestors — 
now only die damaged, 
die smashed, die headless 
remain, slick and glistening 
It may be raining 
in Europe and America 
where the perfect statues 
sit in cases and on pedestals, 
rest in changeless light and temperature, 
never getting w e t -
but here in Longmen 
the ugly and misshapen lurk in their caves, 
breathe widi die wet and cold 
welcome crows and sparrows 
and listen to the river 
Stephen Addiss 
PRIMARY POINT Winter/Spring 1993 15 


Longmen Grottos

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