Daily Zen Quote - November 11, 2013

The master Tan-hsia was traveling with several monks and stopped for the night in a monastery. The night was bitter cold and there was no firewood, so Tan-hsia took down a wooden image of the Buddha, chopped it into pieces, and used it for a fire. The monks were scandalized with this sacrilege, so Tan-hsia explained: "I only burned the statue to get to the sarira (sacred bone relic)."
     "You can't expect to find sarira in a piece of wood," the monks exclaimed.
     "Well, then," said Tan-hsia, "I am only burning a piece of wood."

~Zen Mondo