Shutout and Changeover, 72nd Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Atlas): Another yellow bird, the common yellowthroat is a small and widespread warbler found in shrubby wet areas such as marshes and forest edges and is distinguished by a bright yellow band across its throat. I added it to my life list yesterday on my walk (9.6 miles, a Harrison) through the swampy West Loop portion of the Chattahoochee trail system. The Carolina chickadee and white-breasted nuthatch, too. I'm now up to 34 species.   

Zen Master Shūitsu, whose Dharma name was Shibi, taught that the whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl. One day a monk asked him, “I have heard the words that the whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl. How should the student understand this?” Shibi said, “The whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl. What use is understanding?” On a later day, he asked the question back to the monk, “The whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl. How do you understand this?” The monk said, “The whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl. What use is understanding?” Shibi said, “You're struggling to get inside a demon’s cave in a black mountain.”

The whole universe is not a literal bright pearl; "one bright pearl" is a poetic expression pointing to the interconnectedness, interdependence, and lack of separation in the universe. It's that way whether we understand it or not. In fact, the very act of trying to understand just reinforces the idea that there's a separate "us" trying to grasp some separate "thing," and moves us further from an understanding. It moves us from the one bright pearl itself into the demon's cave in the black mountain of delusion.

The monk's answer to Shibi's question, even though it was the exact same words as Shibi's original answer, showed that the monk still thought there was a "right" understanding to grasp, and it must have been the words that Shibi had said. 

In koan practice, students are asked how they would answer Shibi's question. How would they, how would you, express the whole interconnected, interdependent, selfless universe? Can you express it without differentiating yourself from the answer, or from the one asking?

I'd look Shibi in the eye, and say, "It is what it is, bro. Skibidi." 

I'd be asked to leave the monastery the next morning.