“Where Did You Get This Dust?”
Teisho by Sensei Sōen Michael Brunner on the Platform Sutra Delivered July 26, 2025 at One River Zen in Ottawa, IL.
This has been Jōza Genpō's year. He’s had many rites of passage. Shukke Tokudō was very moving. He’s moving on to be Shusō here shortly, but today was a very important one. Today, Jōza captured his first temple bat and released him out into the wild.
So I said, you know, I’m going to transmit this Dharma wisdom of bat catching—likely because I’m getting a little too old to be getting up on ladders, catching bats, and running and throwing them outside. But he did an exceptional job. I was going to invite the bat to service, but I didn’t think it would work out too well.
Speaking of turning points—there’s a big turning point that’s been on my heart lately. It took place in the Platform Sūtra.
It’s in a section we all remember—we’ve studied the Platform Sūtra before. It’s the coming-of-age and public ministry of the Sixth Zen Ancestor, Daikan Enō. But within it is embedded the story of a contest. There’s a poem on a wall. There’s a poor, illiterate laborer who saw more clearly than the monks who were well trained around him.
At the time of the Platform Sūtra’s origin, Zen was still finding its shape in China. The Fifth Ancestor, Kōnin, was aging. He had trained a large, inclusive community—monks, laypeople, students from different walks of life. And he hadn’t yet named a successor. The organization was successful. The robe and bowl of Bodhidharma were still being passed from generation to generation at this point—we’re not far removed from that.
He had these symbols of Zen transmission, and he was trying to figure out who was going to receive them next. Rather than choosing by rank—which was a common way to do it in that era—he decided to call for a test. I think in the spirit of Bodhidharma, right? Because Bodhidharma did the same thing. He had student successors, and he called five of them together and said, “One of you will receive Dharma transmission.” You don’t know how long they had been training—maybe twenty years.
And the decision would come down to a single question.
You can imagine—all those years of practice now coming to a pinnacle. But instead of a question, Kōnin says, “I want you to write me a gāthā—a verse—that expresses your understanding of the Great Matter. And if someone truly sees through the veneer to their original nature, I’ll transmit the robe, the bowl, and the Dharma to them.”
There was quite a stir—many disciples, one robe, one bowl. But despite their training and their years of monastic life, people were hesitant to step forward. Isn’t that interesting? We see that sometimes in our own practice. All of you have put your hearts and your ardor into the Way, but when a challenge comes right before us, we often shrink.
The head monk—Jinshū—who thought he was in line just by seniority, figured, “Well, I’d better enter.” But he didn’t want to put his name on it, just in case it wasn’t good enough. That’s a lack of confidence. So he waits until nightfall, and by lantern light, he creeps to the wall of the south corridor and writes:
“The body is a bodhi tree,
the mind is like a standing mirror.
Always try to keep it clean—
don’t let it gather dust.”
It’s a polished, balanced verse. Very much in line with what the Northern School or mainstream Mahāyāna thought at the time: that practice is a lifelong effort of purifying the mind, removing the dust of delusion so we can see the light of awakening.
When the abbot read it the next morning, he praised it. He ordered incense to be burned in front of it. Monks were told, “You would do well to practice and memorize this verse”—which isn’t wrong. They had even planned to paint a mural in that corridor, had hired a local artisan—but they canceled it. They kept the verse instead.
Many monks thought it was the winning verse. But Kōnin, while affirming it publicly, made no commitment. He recognized that it was a pointer, yes—but one that stops just short of encouraging someone to step off the cliff.
Then there’s a twist in the story.
At the back of the monastery, working in the rice mill, was Daikan Enō. A poor layman from the south. Illiterate. No formal education. No training in scripture. But eight months earlier, he had heard a single line from the Diamond Sūtra, and it opened his heart.
He asked around—where could I learn more? Eventually, he found his way to the monastery, and he traveled over a month in ragged clothing and hardship to get there. When he arrived, he wasn’t given a seat in the meditation hall. He was told—quite literally—to pound rice. Sent out behind the temple.
Some say Kōnin was being discriminatory—there’s an exchange between them where “southerner” is used pejoratively. But I think Kōnin saw something in him. He also saw the stratification in the Zendo. If he had thrown Daikan Enō into that space, he’d have been ignored or ranked. Sometimes, we just have to work. The training doesn’t only take the form of kōans. It includes the drudgery, the commute, the labor. All of it is the field of practice.
One day, a novice passed by the rice mill, chanting Jinshū’s verse aloud. Daikan Enō heard it and said, “This verse shows small understanding. I’d like to offer one.” So he asked the monk to take him to the wall. And since he couldn’t write, he asked him to write it for him:
“Bodhi doesn’t have any trees,
this mirror doesn’t have a stand.
Our Buddha nature is forever pure—
where did you get this dust?”
That last line—where did you get this dust?—rings across centuries and lands squarely in our own practice. It’s not just poetic. Not just clever. It points directly to the awakened mind.
That question undoes Jinshū’s whole project. It dissolves the mirror he’s trying to polish. It cuts through the idea that awakening is something earned over time. Daikan Enō isn’t saying “don’t polish the mirror”—he’s saying, “there never was a mirror.”
Kōnin sees it immediately. That night, at the third watch, he comes to the rice mill, summons Daikan Enō, and expounds the Diamond Sūtra. When Enō hears it, his mind opens completely. Kōnin transmits the robe and bowl to him in secret. And because he knows the other monks won’t accept him, he tells him to flee.
So Daikan Enō disappears into the night—taking with him a little rice flour, the robe and bowl, and the full transmission of Zen.
It’s a great story.
So what?
Most of us—whether we’ve practiced five days or fifteen years—carry a little bit of the head monk in us. We polish. We strive. We meditate with spiritual ambition: to be peaceful, clear, enlightened. To be the “right” kind of person.
Just polishing the mirror.
And I don’t want to say that’s all wrong. Kōnin honored Jinshū’s verse. He said it would help deluded people. There’s value in the preparation. In calming the mind. But it’s not the whole story.
Daikan Enō shows us what lies beyond technique.
Awakening is not a place we arrive. It’s a recognition of what’s already true.
Your Buddha nature is not something you gain. Not something constructed. It’s not hidden under karma waiting to be revealed. It’s already here. Already pure. Already complete.
That’s why Daikan Enō’s verse is so stark: no tree, no mirror, no dust. The whole project of self-perfection collapses. And in its place arises what? Just that. The mind of curiosity. Quiet presence. Wonder.
This is the heart of Zen. Not hierarchy. Not competition. Just intimacy with what is.
Even the flawed poem is part of the Way. That’s why we don robes. That’s why we observe rites of passage. But don’t get so caught in structure that you miss the pearl already in your hand.
The teaching is here.
There’s nothing to clean. Nothing to gain. Nothing to discard.
So when the self starts polishing again, ask:
Where did you get this dust?
The truth isn’t in the mirror. It’s in seeing that there never was one.
Daikan Enō didn’t run to escape the world—he carried the Dharma into it. He didn’t wait for the world to be ready. He practiced in a way that ripened the world for the Dharma.
So if you’re waiting to know when it’s time?
Today is the day.
Today is the day.
