Ed,
...But, if I did not have an infinite lifetime ahead of me -- and I'm not sure
I do -- I'd give a succinct answer, in all seriousness, like the following:
Any Yes or No answer will leave the hearer in DOUBT! So the "No" left the
hearer in doubt for 500 fox-lives. Afterward, the "Yes" answer took away the
binary doubt, as the two states were now BOTH (all) USED-UP, and therefore
there was only the hearer's enlightened state remaining. And so it remained,
and for the first time came to the surface, came to light.
Could Pai-chang have removed all doubts from the questioner the first time
around? No. Not when a binary question is asked! Anyway, he did not.
A big moral of the story, I think, is that:
"There is no lost time in the Dharma".
Five-hundred Fox-lives is a Good Day.
Best,
--Joe
PS But call me a formal Shikantaza practitioner, for 33 years. ;-)
> "ED" <seacrofter001@...> wrote:
>
> Can you provide an answer that is not Zen-speak?
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