Shozan's Phrase

A monk once asked Shozan, "Is there any phrase that is neither right nor wrong?" Shozan answered, "A piece of white cloud does not show any ugliness."

The monk asks Shozan to express the essence of Buddhism - the non-attached world beyond right or wrong. A white cloud that moves about from one place to another along a mountain side is natural, pure, and innocent - quite beyond right or wrong. It just is. It comes; it goes.