“His desires are roused for all sentient beings.”
“How does he get rid of them then?”
“What is the use of getting rid of them?” answered the master.
On another occasion he said: “Kāśyapa handed [the Law] over to Ānanda, and can you tell me to whom Bodhi-Dharma handed it over?”
A monk interposed: “How is it that we read about the second patriarch’s getting its marrow from Dharma?”[f157]
“Don’t disparage the second patriarch,” Jōshu continued: “Dharma claims that the one who was outside got the skin and the inside one got the bone; but can you tell me what the inmost one gets?”
A monk said, “But don’t we all know that there was one who got the marrow?”
Retorted the master: “He has just got the skin. Here in my place I do not allow even to talk of the marrow.”
“What is the marrow then?”
“If you ask me thus, even the skin you have not traced.”