Overnight, the first snow of the winter

A monk wanted to know what was the Great Wisdom.

The Master answered: “The snow is falling fast and all is enveloped in mist.” The monk remained silent. The Master asks: “Do you understand?” “No, Master, I do not”. 

Thereupon the Master composed a verse for him: Great Wisdom: It is neither taking in nor giving up. If one understands it not, The wind is cold, the snow is falling.

The monk is ‘trying to understand” when in fact he ought to try to look. The apparently mysterious sayings become much simpler when we see them in the whole context of “mindfulness” which in its most elementary form consists in “bare attention” which simply sees what is right there and does not add any comment, any interpretation, any judgment, any conclusion. It just sees. 

If one reaches the point where understanding fails, this is not a tragedy: it is simply a reminder to stop thinking and start looking.

Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite,