The place of great intimacy

A Dharma Hall Discourse of Dogen, EK 3.217:

Yunmen asked Caoshan, ‘Why don’t we know that there is a place of great intimacy?’ Caoshan said, ‘Just because it is greatly intimate, we do not know it is there.’

Suppose this were Eihei and someone asked me, ‘Why don’t we know that there is a place of great intimacy?’ I would just hit his face with my whisk and ask him, ‘Is this knowing or not knowing?’ If he tried to answer, I would hit him again with the whisk.

— (Leighton and Okumura 2004, 225)

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one.

Colossians 4:6 (RSV)

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