Finding Your Buddha Smile- Part 10: Beautiful Snowflakes!

Recorded 3/28/2026.The greatest journeys find completion in ordinary things. The teacup, the comfortable old slippers, the wool jacket on the hook by the door. To quote Dorothy, there’s no place like home, where we’re so at ease, a glance at a morning star, a late-night chat with a friend, or a walk in the snow can open ... the Timeless. So — Blue Cliff Record case 42, “Layman P’ang’s Beautiful Snowflakes,” in which Layman P’ang takes a walk in the snow and says, “Beautiful snowflakes. They fall nowhere.” Let’s see what then happens!But first — a note: “emptiness” that Buddhist bugaboo, simply means empty of our own unconscious, habitual, self-centeredness. Self-forgotten, the world of 10,000 uniquely distinct things, living and non-living, steps in and realizes itself as the Self. Less self-conscious, less self-driven practice follows. A Zen saying says, “The way up the mountain is not all that hard, but the way down is endless.” P’ang who is “nothing himself, beholds/ Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.” (Wallace Stevens, “The Snow Man”) And so, as to all those lovely snowflakes falling — how will you present them?Read Roshi Rafe Martin's latest book:  Finding Your Buddha Smile: Coming Home To What Zen is Really All About.  Available from Amazon , Sumeru Books, and Barnes & Noble Online.Photo of Smiling Buddha, Lung-men Caves, China, by Rafe Martin 2006Books by Roshi Rafe MartinTalks on YouTubeMore information at endlesspathzen.org