Gutei's finger pointing to the One

Be true to yourself, because your own truth can lead you to the ultimate truth. Nobody else's truth can be your truth. You have a seed within you.

Only if that seed sprouts and becomes a tree will you have a flowering; then you will have an ecstasy, a benediction. But if you are following others that seed will remain dead.

And you may accumulate all the ideals in the world and become successful, but you will feel empty, because nothing else can fill you--only your seed, when it becomes a tree, will fill you. You will feel fulfillment only when your truth has come to flower, never before.

The Zen master Gutei made a practice of raising his finger whenever he explained a question about Zen. A very young disciple began to imitate him, and whenever anyone asked the disciple what his master had been preaching about, the boy would raise his finger.

Gutei got to hear about this, and when he came upon the boy as he was doing it one day, he seized the boy, whipped out a knife, cut off his finger, and threw it away.

As the boy ran off howling Gutei shouted, "Stop!" The boy stopped, turned round, and looked at his master through his tears.

Gutei was holding up his own finger. The boy went to hold up his finger, and when he realized it wasn't there he bowed. In that instant he became enlightened.

This is a very strange story, and there is every possibility that you will misunderstand it, because the most difficult thing to understand in life is the behavior of an enlightened person.

Masters never do anything unnecessarily, not even raising a finger... Gutei didn't always raise a finger, only when he explained a question about Zen--why? All your problems arise because you are fragmented, because you are a disunity, a chaos, not a harmony. And what is meditation? Nothing but coming to a unity.

Gutei's explanations were secondary; the one raised finger was the primary thing. He was saying, "Be one! and all your problems will be solved." The boy began to imitate him.

Now, imitation cannot lead you anywhere. Imitation means that the ideal comes from without, it is not something happening within you. You have a seed within you; if you are imitating others that seed will remain dead.

Gutei must have been very, very compassionate. Only out of compassion you can be so hard--the imitation has to be cut severely. The finger is just symbolic. The boy has to be shocked severely, and the suffering must go to the very root of his being. A very intense moment of awareness, a very great device...

Gutei shouted, "Stop!" In the moment of stopping there was no more pain. Just out of old habit, when the master raises his finger the boy raises his--which is not there. And for the first time he realizes that he is not the body--he is awareness, consciousness. He is a soul, and the body is just the house.

You are the light within--not the lamp, but the flame.