A Zen Story. One day one person climbed up a mountain where a hermit woman was meditating. She had taken refuge and was asked: “What are you doing here alone in such a solitude place?” To which she replied: “I have lots of work !” “And how can you have so much work? I don't see anything around you here...?” “I have to train two hawks and two eagles, assure two rabbits, discipline one snake, motivate a donkey and tame a lion.....” “And, where have they gone that I don't see them?” “I have them all inside here within me...!! The hawks stare on everything that is presented to me, good or bad, I have to work on them to see only good things. They are my eyes. The two eagles with their claws hurt and destroy, I have to train them not to hurt. They are my hands. Rabbits want to go where they want, at the same time they do not want to face difficult situations, I have to teach them to be calm even if there is suffering or stumbling. They are my feet. The donkey is always tired, stubborn and does not want to carry the load each time I walk. That is my body! The most difficult to tame is the "snake." Although it is locked in a strong cage with 32 bars, it is always ready to sting, bite and poison anyone nearby. I have to discipline it... That's my tongue. I also have one Lion. Oh ... how proud, vain, he thinks that "he is the king." I have to tame him. And, That's my ego. “So you see, my friend, I have lots of work to do.....” Buddha Among Us: The abbot of a monastery was upset it has fallen into decline.The monks had become lazy and initiates were deserting.One day he met a sage and asked him how he could bring the glory days back.The sage said "the reason your monastery is declining is that the Buddha is living among you in disguise,but you haven't honoured him."The abbot was disturbed .He called all the monks and repeated the sage's words.They began regarding each other with suspicion and awe.Which one of them is Buddha?Not knowing who he was,they started treating everyone with the respect due to a Buddha.Their faces and form thus shone with an inner radiance that attracted monks and adepts and brought the monastery back to it's former glory. One day a young Buddhist on his journey home came to the banks of a wide river. Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him, he pondered for hours on just how to cross such a wide barrier. Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey he saw a great teacher on the other side of the river. The young Buddhist yells over to the teacher, “Oh wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river”? The teacher ponders for a moment looks up and down the river and yells back, “My son, you are on the other side”. The moon appears as a figure in many Zen stories. This is one of the first I heard and remains one of my favorites. This combines elements from several versions of it: Master Ryokan lived as a hermit in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief snuck into to the hut but found nothing in it to steal. The master returned from a walk carrying a bowl of water he'd filled at a stream. Finding the thief, he said, "You've come a long way and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift. And please take this bowl of water as well, where the moon is reflected." As the thief grabbed the clothes and the bowl, Ryokan apologized: "If I could give you the moon itself, I would." Ryokan sat naked at the door of his hut and wrote a poem. The thief left it behind: the moon at my window. This story is about a mother. One day when this mother goes to the market, someone running into her, and tell her "Your son is drowning" She ran back home. Nevertheless she finds her son already blue. People trying to save her son, but no breath, no pulse, no heat from the body. The son died. The mother was running and crying, she lifted her son's body to best doctor, The doctor says he can do nothing. She goes to the second doctor, The doctor says he can do nothing, She goes to the third doctor, The doctor says he can do nothing, She goes to the fourth doctor, The doctor says he can do nothing, She goes crazy, she goes to a Buddhist temple. She breaks in to the head monastery room. She crying, and says "Monk, you always preach that Buddha is kind and helpful. Now I'm in a deep suffering, please ask Buddha to help me. Please revive my son. Please, I beg you. Please." The head monk was speechless, he too can feel the sadness in her heart. He say to the mother. "Auntie, I can do nothing, your son already dead, but I do know a medicine that can revive dead people, but I don't have the ingredients needed" Mother "What ingredients do you need? I will find it for you and bring it here" Monk "Okay, Please find me a bamboo from a house where stay a family where no one in that family already died" Mother "Okay, okay, I will search it and bring it here" She run, to the nearest house, and ask for a bamboo, then she asks if there someone in the family who died. The owner say, "yes, I have a bamboo, but my husband already died" She run, to the second house, third house and so on. Asking for a bamboo, then she asks if there someone in the family who died. But every house she goes, they already have a family who died. One time she find a family, the family tells her that all her grand father and grand mother still alive, even the great grand parents still alive too. But when she was talking with the house owner, asking for Bamboo, the great grand father died. After searching to whole town, the mother now realize. That her sorrow is not her's alone. Many people also already lost someone dear to them, either their husband, or children, or parents. She got enlightenment, and go back to monastery to pick her son body. Now she said "Son, yesterday I thought, why all this happen to you, why you die so soon. But now I realize that you are not the only one who died. You don't get misfortune nor a bad luck, its all is nature law. Son, I'm sorry, I can't spend more time with you, but please, rest in peace there." Om Shanti |
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