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Chan Master Daowu posed this question to Chan Master Yunyan, “Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva has a thousand hands and a thousand eyes. May I ask you which eye is the true eye?”
Yunyan responded, “You are sleeping, and your pillow falls to the floor. With your eyes still closed, and without giving the slightest thought, your hand reaches down and picks it up. I ask you, which eye did you use to pick it up?”
“Ah! Now I understand,” said Daowu. “What do you understand?” “That all over the body is the eye.” Smiling, Yunyan countered, “You only understand eighty percent.”
Daowu was baffled. “What then should I say?” “Say the whole body is the eye,” replied Yunyan.
“All over the body is the eye” signifies understanding through discriminating consciousness. “The whole body is the eye” denotes non-discriminating wisdom from the nature of the mind. In our true mind, the entire body is the eye. Let’s apply this concept to our deep reflection and comprehension of all things.