Hōgen's Hair's-Breadth: Shōyōroku Case 17

This talk was given by Sensei Michael Brunner, Abbot and Guiding Teacher of One River Zen in Ottawa, Illinois on October 18, 2025.

Good morning — it’s great to have you here this morning for meditation.

We had a very rousing service. Many of our regular participants weren’t able to make it, but my son David certainly did — and we had to do a kind of cosmic dance with the wounded child to get through the service. But in the end, that itself is a wonderful expression of what our lives are about: we have to work with things as they are, to recognize the infinite joy that is always present and possible when we look past our expectations and see what is actually there.

There’s an old verse in the Shin jin mei that opens:

“The Great Way is not difficult — it only avoids picking and choosing.
Make even a hair’s-breadth distinction and Heaven and Earth are set apart.”

It’s a difficult conundrum because we hear “the Great Way is not difficult” and our ears perk up — “Ah! This is it! He’s finally going to give us the antidote — the secret.” But then: “Just don’t pick and choose.” Oh. Well then there’s that, right?

Expectation versus things as they are. Anytime there is a distinction or separation between those two, a potential difference begins to form — and the farther apart those plates are pulled, the stronger the lightning bolts between them. Those lightning bolts represent our suffering.

This is not philosophy — this is the practical essence of lived experience we are talking about. Every day, perhaps a thousand times or more if we are living in the annals of the small self, we part Heaven and Earth:

“I like this.”
“I don’t like that.”
“This isn’t the way it’s supposed to go.”

There is an old story in the Shōyōroku — Case 17 — that addresses this very point.

Hōgen asked the administrator monk Shuzan,

“If there is even a hair’s-breadth of difference, Heaven and Earth are clearly separated. How do you understand this?”

Shuzan said,

“If there is even a hair’s-breadth of difference, Heaven and Earth are clearly separated.”

Hōgen said,

“If that’s so, then how do you understand it?”

Shuzan replied,

“I am just this. What about you, Osho?”

Hōgen repeated,

“If there is even a hair’s-breadth of difference, Heaven and Earth are clearly separated.”

And Shuzan bowed.

That is the entire exchange: a few lines back and forth — and somehow the Dharma is transmitted.

“How do you understand this?” — that is already dangerous. To “understand” something means there is someone standing apart from what is happening, someone looking at it. Already the distinction creates that hair’s-breadth, and Heaven and Earth are parted. That is how subtle it is. That is how fast it happens. The moment we step back from what’s happening, the moment we try to comprehend or control, we’ve lost it. The Great Way slips away — not because it is hiding, but because we have made a viewer and a viewed.

So Hōgen throws out the question to see where Shuzan stands. Shuzan does not move. He does not explain, does not decorate, does not embellish. He does not even pretend to “have an understanding.” He simply gives back exactly what was given:

“If there is even a hair’s-breadth of difference, Heaven and Earth are clearly separated.”

Some might think he is merely repeating the teacher, but that is not what is happening. This repetition is not an echo. It is breathing the same breath. When the mind is clear and there is no grasping, the words do not come from separation — they flow naturally.

Hōgen hears this and presses:

“If that’s so, then how do you understand it?”

This is where the hammer falls. If there is no gap between Heaven and Earth, then who is left to understand? What is there to understand? If it is all one piece, then what is “you” and what is “it”? Who is the one asking this question?

You can feel the trap closing.
If you answer — you create the gap.
If you don’t answer — you create the gap.

So what does Shuzan do?

He steps straight through the middle:

“I am just this. What about you, Osho?”

Not: “I understand” or “I don’t understand.”
Not: “I am enlightened” or “I am confused.”
Drop off the “I” in the numerator and meet the cosmic denominator.

When the “I” is dropped, the infinite present manifests. Not just temporal — spatial as well. Just this. Nowhere else. He stands right in the middle of the world and encompasses the whole world. The place where we are standing right now is just this. Heaven and Earth are already one.

With, “What about you, Osho?” — when you truly stand in just this, there is no room left for comparison, not even between teacher and student. Only mirror meeting mirror. Sky reflecting sky.

So Hōgen repeats it again,

“If there is even a hair’s-breadth of difference, Heaven and Earth are clearly separated.”

This time it is not a question — it is confirmation. It is transmission.

Shuzan bows — not to authority, not to a person, but to that living presence now recognized and shared.

The bow is the whole of practice.

When we talk about a “hair’s-breadth distinction,” it sounds tiny — but in lived experience it is vast.

You wake up and think, “I’m tired.” There it is.
You sit on the cushion and think, “My mind is all over the place.” There it is.
Someone speaks sharply and you think, “How dare they?” There it is.
A world is born — the world of expectation and opinion.

The hair’s-breadth is the instant we move away from the immediacy of what is present.
When we prefer or resist, we’ve made it.
Even when we think, “I’m in sync with it” — it is gone.

The Shinjinmei says:

“When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised.”

It does not say “Do not feel love or hate.”
It says: do not build a world out of them.
Do not construct a self from them.
See them come. See them go.
And stay put.

As long as there is measuring, Heaven and Earth will never meet.

There is a preface to this case in the Shōyōroku — as there are to all the cases:

“Paired geese beat the ground with their wings and fly high.
A pair of wood ducks stand alone at the edge of a pond.
Leaving aside the matter of arrow-points meeting head-on,
what about sawing on a steel counterweight?”

Beautiful, picturesque. Geese and ducks — one in motion and one in stillness. Alive and dead. Both complete expressions of the Way.

But then: Leaving aside arrow-points meeting head-on — leaving aside the perfect accordance — What about sawing on steel?
What about when life grinds?
What about when things are difficult, discordant, unmoving?
That is where practice actually begins.

It is easy to feel expansive when the geese are flying in formation.
When the saw teeth hit steel — can you stay in rhythm with that?
Can you see the beauty and wonder there too?

That is just this.

There is a verse after the case:

“A fly settles on a balanced pan and it tilts.
The ten-thousand-generation scale illuminates unevenness.
Pounds, ounces, pennyweights, grains — measure exactly as you will —
in the end you lose to my fixed indicator.”

How delicate this practice is — how subtle.
The smallest thing — one word, one look, one tone — and if we grasp it, it throws us off.
We begin measuring:

“I should be more patient.”
“I’m too distracted.”
“I’m not there yet.”
“I’ll never get there.”

The scale is registering.
We start weighing our life as though the Way were something measurable.

But the verse says, “Measure exactly as you will — in the end you lose to my fixed indicator.”
The fixed indicator is the great mind that includes everything.
Before grasping arises.
Before liking or disliking.
Before measuring.
That is what is meant by “faith in mind” — not belief in a claim, but trust in the ground you are already standing on.

The Shin jin mei says:

“Do not seek the truth — only cease to cherish opinions.”

That is the trust:
Stop polishing your reflection.
Stop adjusting the world.
Stop trying to adjust yourself to the world.

So when Shuzan says, “I am just this,” he is living faith in mind — not faith in an idea, not faith in a teacher — faith in this breath, this heartbeat, this instant.

When Hōgen repeats the line, teacher and student, question and answer are one motion.
And Shuzan bows.
Do not overlook that.

Sometimes bowing is bowing.
Sometimes bowing is offering tea.
Sometimes bowing is feeding someone who is hungry.
Sometimes bowing is conceding the argument — even when you are right.

Put it down.

So look for that hair’s-breadth of difference.
Look for where you split Heaven and Earth.

Maybe it is in the thought: “This talk has gone too long.”
There it is.

Our practice is not to close the gap — it is to step into it.
And from that position, transcend it.

When we truly bow to it, Heaven and Earth bow with us.

This is “I am just this.”
Just this.