If the Emperor thinks Bodhidharma is a holy one, that is not true. Especially when the Emperor asked him, “What is the first principle?” The first principle is not something holy, or not holy. Whatever you say about it, it is not right. So, he said, “I don’t know” [laughs]. It is not a matter of holy or not holy. “Who are you?” he asked. If he said “Bodhidharma,” that is not perfect, so he said, “I don’t know.”
Calligraphy by Jakusho Bill Kwong
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 68-07-23 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. These posts are also on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram. We are continually working on improving the quality of transcriptions of Suzuki's lectures. After a new "verbatim transcript" is made, we create a minimally edited version which is more readable. See the most recently completed transcripts at shunryusuzuki.com/n.
