Koan: Not Far from Buddhahood
A university student while visiting Gasan asked him: “Have you ever read the Christian Bible?”
“No, read it to me,” said Gasan.
The student opened the Bible and read from St. Matthew: “And why take ye thought for rainment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these… Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”
Gasan said: “Whoever uttered those words I consider an enlightened man.”
The student continued reading: “Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”
Gasan remarked: “That is excellent. Whoever said that is not far from Buddhahood.”
It sounds as if the enlightened mind is universal. As such, the koan accepts buddhood as feeling of perception not only within a defined system or georaphical location.
The buddha is in all who reach or attain enlightenment. Does that mean a sufi, a hindu can be a buddha? If so, then we may ask: why did buddha, in refrence to hinduism, find it wanting? If buddhood is to be valeud as a uniquely distinct expression then it ought to be different from other conceptualisations? In passing, it is equally true, as argued, that Jesus himself had an understanding of buddhism. This would make the koan merely a reflection of traditional buddhist notions.