Three Pounds of Hemp

📝Reflection

When a practitioner asked what the Buddha is, the master happened to be weighing hemp on a scale. He answered with what was in his hands: "Three pounds of hemp." This koan topples in an instant the grandeur we expect from a sacred word like "Buddha." The answer was not far away — it was the task his hands were doing in that very moment, three pounds of hemp on the scale. Truth does not sit apart in some mystical place; it is right within the ordinary work I am doing now. We belittle daily tasks and seek the "real meaning" elsewhere. But this koan asks: that thing now in your hands — is there no Buddha in it? No need to strain for the correct answer. Simply do the work in your hands now as if attending to the Buddha, and that is the answer.