"A master certainly knows at what height you are and he speaks accordingly. He never wastes a single word or a single moment.

"Maneesha has brought this small anecdote, which will explain to you what Rinzai, who was the founder of Zen in Japan, is about.

When Rinzai once visited Horin, Horin said: 'Into the sea the moonlight falls clear and shadowless, but the wanton fish deceive themselves.'
Rinzai commented: 'If the moonlight on the sea is without shadows, how can the fish be deceived?'

"All deception is taking the shadow for the real. But strangely enough – perhaps you have never observed it – a shadow itself cannot cast a shadow. Hence the ancient law that if you see a man without a shadow, remember he is a ghost, because a real man will have a shadow. Only a man who appears as a man but is transparent – you can pass your hand through him and you will not touch anything – will not make any shadow.

"The reflection of the moon in the lake is a shadow itself. How can it cast a shadow? That is impossible. But what Horin wanted to say is not anything unnecessary or non-essential.

"He said, 'Into the sea, the moonlight falls clear and shadowless, but the wanton fish deceive themselves.'

"What do they deceive themselves about? What is their deception? What is their illusion? Their illusion is to take the reflection as the real moon.

"But Rinzai commented: 'If the moonlight on the sea is without shadows, how can the fish be deceived?'

"The fish can certainly be deceived, because even men are deceived by shadows. Rinzai's question is clear and from a height of consciousness. Everybody in the world is deceived by shadows. What are all your imaginations? What are all your dreams?

"Have you ever considered the fact that while dreaming you never think that this is unreal? While awake you may think perhaps that all you are saying is unreal, only a dream; but in a dream you can never think that it is a dream, for the simple reason that if you are so much aware as to experience the dream as a dream, the dream will stop."