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I# f YASUTANI ' S INTERVIEWS WITH WESTERNERSby greed, anger, and folly. I believe that, because it is certainly trueofmysel£Rosm: A blind man, even while blind, is fWldamentally wholeand perfect. The same is true of a deaf-mute. If a deaf-mute suddenlyregained his hearing, his perfection would no longer be that of adeaf-mute. Were this saucer on the table to be broken, each segmentwould be wholeness itsel£ What is visible to the eye is merely theform, which is ever-changing, not the substance. Actually the word"perfect" is superfluous. Things are neither perfect nor imperfect,they are what they are. Everything has absolute worth, hence nothingcan be compared with anything else. A tall man is tall, a short manis short, that is all you can say. There is a koan where in reply to thequestion "What is the Buddha ?" the master answers: "The tall bamboois tall, the short bamboo is short." Kensho is nothing more thandirectly perceiving all this in a flash.* * *STUDENT: I am still having trouble putting my mind in the palmof my hand.ROSin: What is the matter?STUDENT : It is a strain fo r me to fo cus my attention there whileexhaling; my concentration becomes disrupted.ROSin : You must not strain yourself. Instead of trying to put yourmind somewhere, simply concentrate on the question "Who am I?"STUDENT: When I prostrate myself before you or before the imageof the Buddha, or when I am chanting the sutras or walking, I haveno inclination to ask myself "Who am I?'' Is it all right not to at theserimes?ROSin: You must ask the question at all times. While walkingyou must question, "Who is walking?" When prostrating yourselfyou must question, "Who is prostrating?"STUD£NT : Or else "Who am I?"Rosm: Yes. It amoWlts to the same thing.* * *STUDENT: In addressing everybody last night you said that whenwe went to bed we should not separate ourselves from our koan butcontinue the questioning even during sleep. I find that I forget mykoan quickly when I am sleeping because I dream a lot. The dream