Blatantly inspired by Mallory Ortberg's Bible Verses Where A Word Has Been Replaced By A Different Word

The Gateless Gate, Case 7: Jōshū Washes The Bowl

A monk asked Jōshū to teach him.

Jōshū asked, "Have you eaten your meal?"

The monk replied, "Yes, I have."

"Then go wash your bowl", said Jōshū.

At that moment, the monk got woke.

The Gateless Gate, Case 15: Tōzan's Three Blows

Tōzan went to Ummon. Ummon asked him where he had come from.

Tōzan said: "From Sato."

Ummon asked: "In what temple did you remain for the summer?"

Tōzan replied: "The temple of Hōzu, south of the lake."

"When did you leave there?" asked Ummon.

"The twenty-fifth of August," answered Tōzan.

Ummon said: "I should give you three blows with a stick, but today I forgive you."

The next day Tōzan bowed to Ummon and asked: "Yesterday you forgave me three blows. I do not know why you thought me wrong."

Ummon, rebuking Tōzan's spiritless responses, said: "You are good for nothing. You simply wander from one monastery to another."

Before Ummon's words were ended Tōzan got woke.

101 Zen Stories, Case 46: How Grass & Trees Become Woke

During the Kamakura period, Shinkan studied Tendai six years and then studied Zen seven years; then he went to China and contemplated Zen for thirteen years more.

When he returned to Japan many desired to interview him and asked obscure questions. But when Shinkan received visitors, which was infrequently, he seldom answered their questions.

One day a fifty-year-old student of wokeness said to Shinkan: "I have studied the Tendai school of thought since I was a little boy, but one thing in it I cannot understand. Tendai claims that even the grass and trees will get woke. To me this seems very strange."

"Of what use is it to discuss how grass and trees get woke?" asked Shinkan. "The question is how you yourself can become so. Did you ever consider that?"

"I never thought of it in that way," marveled the old man.

"Then go home and think it over," finished Shinkan.

Book of Equanimity, Case 8: Hyakujō and the Fox

Whenever Master Hyakujō delivered a sermon, an old man was always listening there with the monks. When they left, he left too. One day, however, he remained behind.

Hyakujō asked him, "What man are you, standing there?"

The old man replied, "In the past, in the time of Kashyapa Buddha, I lived on this mountain as a Zen priest. Once a monk came and asked me, 'Does a perfectly woke person fall under the law of cause and effect or not?' I said to him, 'He does not.' Because of this answer, I fell into the state of a fox for 500 lives. Now, I beg you, Master, please say a turning word."

Hyakujō said, "The law of cause and effect cannot be obscured."

Upon hearing this, the old man became greatly woke.

Book of Equanimity, Case 20: Jizō's "Most Intimate"

Jizō asked Hōgen, "Where are you going, senior monk?"

Hōgen said, "I am on pilgrimage, following the wind."

Jizō said, "What are you on pilgrimage for?"

Hōgen said, "I don't know."

Jizō said, "Non knowing is most intimate."

Hōgen suddenly got really woke.

101 Zen Stories, Case 31: Every Take is Hottest

When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer.

"Give me the hottest take you have," said the customer.

"Every take in my feed is the hottest," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any take that is not the hottest."

At these words Banzan got woke.