When Zhaozhou, who would later become Great Master Zhenji, of the Tang Dynasty aroused the aspiration for enlightenment and was about to begin a journey, he said to himself, "I will ask about dharma of anyone who surpasses me, even a seven-year-old. I will teach anyone who is behind me, even a one-hundred-year-old."
When asking a seven-year-old about dharma, an old man like Zhaozhou bows. It is an extraordinary aspiration, the mind art of an old buddha.
It is an excellent custom of study that when a nun has attained the way, attained dharma, and started to teach, monks who seek dharma and study join her assembly, bow to her, and ask about the way. It is just like finding water at the time of thirst.
---Master Dogen, in Raihai Tokuzui---
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