Qi and phenomenology of wind
pp. 97-111
in: Anthony Steinbock (ed), Phenomenology in Japan, Berlin, Springer, 1998Abstract
A famous Zen priest Hohtetsu was gently fanning himself. A young monk asks him: The wind-nature is always everywhere between heaven and earth. Why are you using the fan? The priest answers: You know only that the wind-nature is always everywhere. However you do not know the way-truth that no place is not penetrated by the wind-nature. The monk asks: What is this way-truth? Then the priest answers without a word using only his fan. Dogen explains this dialogue: To say that you do not use the fan because the wind-nature is always everywhere, and that you shall hear wind by using no fan, means that this young monk does not know the always and everywhere being of the wind-nature. The wind-nature is always everywhere, therefore the Buddhistic wind lets the golden earth be....1