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our single perfect nature
shines by itself
*The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse. Trans. & Comm. Red Pine.
Stonehouse. i.e., Shiwu; China, Chan Buddhist monk, poet, recluse; b. 1272
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A woman in China supported a monk for twenty years. She built a small hermitage for him and fed and clothed him. Finally, she wondered what progress he had made in those years and wanted to test him. She recruited a beautiful woman from the village. "Go and embrace him," she told her, "and say, 'What now?'"
The woman visited the monk and caressed him, asking him what he would do about it. He replied, "An old tree grows on a cold rock in winter. Nowhere is there any warmth."
The woman returned to the monk's benefactor and told her what had happened. “What!?” came the reply. “To think I’ve been supporting a fake for all these years!” She grabbed a stick, hurried to the hermitage, and beat the monk, shouting, “Get out of here!” He sped off quickly. She proceeded to burn down the hermitage.
* * *
In Susan Moon's, The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, Zen Teacher Zenkei Blanche Hartman comments on this story, and while she speaks of Zen, it applies to any spiritual path -
Through Zen practice we develop a greater and greater appreciation of everything around us; we don’t become an old, withered stump! I’m much more alive than I was when I started this practice, and much more appreciative, and that’s true of most Zen people I know. The practice is not about suppressing desire or destroying our humanity but about allowing it to flow out to everything rather than to a particular object.
Hartman's experience has been mine, also. The longer I keep with spiritual practice, the more alive I feel, the more I enjoy life. And, while I live alone and cherish solitude, the more I enjoy others.
Hartman's and my experience reflect Stonehouse's words - and this is common to spiritual practitioners. With spiritual practice, the "i" resides, and the lively, clear, and pristine nature shines through accordingly. And compassion is the natural, spontaneous expression of this true nature. No matter how somebody is wounded and flawed, true nature is immaculate and whole.
Note: While Christianity generally begins with our having a sinful nature, Buddhism begins with our having this pure, pristine nature. For these Christians, one needs to be forgiven for sin - violating the will of the Christian deity - for Buddhists one needs to return to the Self we all are. One is individualistic, Christianity; one universalistic, Buddhism. To return to the luminous True Self is not to return to a Self that is only you. In Buddhism, the idea of personal salvation, a common teaching in Christianity, is foreign.
* * *
This Zen story shows how orthopraxy - right practice - can be an end in itself - a dead and deadening end (as with orthodoxy, or correct belief). The monk coldly voiced a riddle-like reply, "An old tree grows on a cold rock in winter. Nowhere is there any warmth."
True to his saying, the monk acts with detachment and dispassion. However, in his detachment, he was detached from compassion. In being free from desire, he was cut off from passion. He seemed to have used the years in solitude well, yet he had lost his warmth - his warmheartedness. He is aware of this and seems proud of the loss, believing such emotional aloofness demonstrates fidelity to the Way.
The monk was uninterested in the well-being of the woman who appeared to seduce him. He acted with indifference. He showed no curiosity about what suffering could have led her to want to seduce him. He could have said he was a monk vowed to chastity, but rather, he proclaimed his sexual inviolability.
* * *
Spiritual practice leads us to heart-openness, which is compassion. Heart-openness is more than a feeling, while it welcomes feelings that naturally arise in the moment. That is, there is nothing fake about open-heartedness, and no prescribed way to show it. You cannot predict in advance how you need to act or what you need to say. True nature is wiser than anything you can think of as to how and what to do in showing care toward others.
* * *
We grow to manifest a caring for others without our personal stamp. That is, we no longer identify as one who shows compassion. A river flows without claiming ownership of the flow. The river is the flow. So, with compassion.
The compassion may manifest from apparent to not-apparent. It can be subtle and silent, no evidence showing of its presence except your being present, yet it is present. It does not need to announce itself.
* * *
One lesson I learned over the years is there is no way to show compassion. There are many ways compassion shows up. Each situation is different, each person different. You yourself are different. We learn to relax with the unknowing, being grounded in our bodies, feeling what we feel in that space with the other.
* * *
We undervalue the wisdom of holding space silently for others. In holding space, we do not intrude by trying to do or say the right thing. We hold space for the other to be with what they are feeling. By holding space, we share space with. We are participating, we are not aloof. We are welcoming Presence to present itself through us.
In moments of suffering, what the other most needs is not your presence, but Presence. Then, what to say or do, or not, can arise in that openness. Yet, the openness is not an absence, it itself is Presence.
* * *
There is no I ought to say or do in showing compassion. What appears appears. You are its servant, not its master. You are its means, not the Source. Let the "i" relax. Personality recedes, true nature shines forth.
Compassion is not about you, or anyone. Still, your nature is compassion, so in compassion you are intimately involved. Compassion manifests as you, you manifests as compassion. The two are not the same, yet are indistinguishable.
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One of the hazards of the spiritual life is to get attached to detachment - like persons who get attached to good boundaries, and, so, build a wall. Then, yes, we become like a cold, withered stump in winter. We need to engage in spiritual practices that help keep the heart warm, so we do not become heartless but remain heartwarming. And we need spiritual practice that conditions us to remain open to feelings arising in us and to relax with them, neither hugging them tightly nor pushing them away. We learn how to be with others by learning to be with ourselves.
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In growing in caring for others, as person, pastor, counselor, and chaplain, I learned to be content with not knowing what to say or do, or when to say or do. I accepted it was like walking a pathless path. I learned what people most needed was not about my providing the perfect care but showing up for them. I learned to relax with the discomfort, for often the feeling was a sense of groundlessness, and, paradoxically, that is a good place to stand and wait in quiet, prayerful receptivity. Did I always get this right? Maybe I never did. And that is okay, too. Anyway, maybe there is no way to get it right, even as no way to get it wrong - as long as we are present reverently, sincerely.
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© Brian K. Wilcox, 2026
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