Product Description

The great Zen teacher Ta Hui comes from the same lineage as Bodhidharma. He was born
four hundred years after Bodhidharma had left for the Himalayas, to disappear into the eternal
ice, the eternal silence there.
I have called Ta Hui the great Zen teacher — not a master … it has to be explained to you
clearly. The master is one who is enlightened. but sometimes it happens that the master may
be enlightened, but is not articulate enough to give expression to what he has known. That is a
totally different art.
The teacher is not enlightened, but he is very articulate. He can say things which the
master, although he knows, cannot bring to words. The teacher can say them, although he does
not know.
The teacher he has heard … he has lived with enlightened people, he has imbibed their
energy, he has been showered by their flowers. He has tasted something transpiring from the
enlightened ones, so he has a certainty that something like enlightenment happens, but he has
no authority of his own; his authority is borrowed. And if the teacher is a genius, he can
almost manage to express things over which masters have faltered, or they have remained
silent.
The teacher has his own utility. He is more available to the people — he belongs to the
people. The master is on a high sunlit peak. Even if he shouts from there, only echoes reach to
the people’s ears. But the teacher lives amongst the people, knows their life, knows their
language, knows how things should be expressed so they can understand. The master remains
committed to his experience, while the teacher is more committed to the people, to spread the
message