on teachers

by tendo zenji

“If you follow the realized mind you’ve happened into, making it your teacher, how could you be without a teacher? You don’t need to understand the realm of change: when mind turns to itself, you’ve found your teacher. Even a numbskull has mind for a teacher. Not to realize yourself in mind, and to insist on yes this and no that—it’s like leaving for Yueh when you’ve already arrived there. It’s like believing that what isn’t is. What isn’t is—even that great sage-emperor Yu couldn’t understand such things, so how could someone like me?”

Chuang Tzu, translated by David Hinton in Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters