Case 4 of the Blue Cliff Record

The topic is focused on an old Zen story (Case 4 of the Blue Cliff Record for those who are familiar with the literature), which discusses the apparently paradoxical relationship between what we might call “spiritual ambition”—i.e. wishing to benefit in some way from a spiritual practice like Zen—and the way in which ambition of any sort (aka “grasping”) is a barrier to fruitful practice. Case 4 of the Blue Cliff Record Zachary Smith