The Simple Way, Part 44

The Simple Way
The Life & Teachings of Zhouzi
by Scott Bradley

The logician Chui asked, “You teach that we are perfect just as we are, yet with the next breath you tell us to realize our humanity. If there is perfection, why then is there still something to do?”

Zhouzi replied, “Perfection is not an attainment, but simply what is. How then could there be anything but? Now if I give you a pumpkin, it will be perfectly a pumpkin however it’s used. If you make it a chair and your bottom breaks through, it’s still perfectly a pumpkin and you’re still perfectly you. Or you might bake it in the oven and be nourished thereby, and in this you would have realized how best it might benefit you. Now the human experience is no simple thing, and the ways of its expression are too many to count, yet there is that which most expresses the fullness thereof. And this is what nourishes us and what we most benefit from.”

As Chui was leaving the hall a mischievous monk presented him with a pumpkin which was graciously received.

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