Communique of Unknown Voltage, 32nd Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Electra): "Rabbi, Rabbi," Zuzia asked, "before I die, how can I become more like Moses?"

The great Rabbi said, "When you get there, son, they will not ask you why you weren't more like Moses. They will ask you why you weren't more like Zuzia."  

That's from a Hassidic tale I heard early this morning on NPR as I was getting up.  There are parallels in many of the world's religions, as actual wisdom, that is, truth itself, abides in no single tradition and knows no fixed form.

In a similar story in the Zen tradition, Mazu was practicing zazen (sitting meditation) when his teacher, Nanyue, asked him, "What do you intend by sitting in zazen?"

Mazu answered, "I intend to become a buddha." 

The great Rabbi would have smiled at this. Shouldn't Mazu have intended to become Mazu?  

But Nanyue merely picked up a nearby brick and started polishing it. Mazu asked him what he was doing and Nanyue said, "I am trying to make a mirror."

Mazu asked, "How can polishing make a brick become a mirror?"

The great Rabbi knowingly winks at Nanyue, who asks Mazu, "How can practicing zazen make you become a buddha?"

"What do you mean?," Mazu understandably asks.

"Think about driving a cart," Nanyue explains. "If it stops moving, do you beat the cart or beat the horse?" Mazu said nothing, so Nanyue explained, "Do you want to practice zazen, or do you want to become a buddha? You should understand that zazen is not meditation or contemplation, it is not about quieting the mind, focusing the mind, or studying the mind, it is not mindfulness  or mindlessness. If you want to really understand zazen,  then know that it is not about sitting or laying down. Zazen is simply zazen."

"With regard to becoming a buddha, you should understand that being Buddha is beyond any fixed form and has no abode. The very act of becoming a buddha is actually the killing of Buddha. Therefore, when zazen is zazen, Mazu is Mazu. When Mazu is Mazu, Mazu is Buddha.  When Mazu is Buddha, the brick is a mirror. Each thing is not transformed into the other but is, in fact, originally the other. Practice is merely the realization."

Zen Master Dogen points out that by polishing the brick, Nanyue was admonishing Mazu's seeking to become a buddha, but he did not restrain Mazu from practicing zazen. "Sitting itself is the practice of a buddha. Sitting itself is non-doing. It is nothing but the true form of the self. Apart from sitting, there is nothing else to seek."         

When Zuzia becomes more like Zuzia, Zusia becomes more like Moses. When Zusia becomes more like Moses, Zuzia, Moses and the great Rabbi all become one.