Zen parables

Discussion in 'Religion, Beliefs and Spirituality' started by Land Cow, May 23, 2010.

  1. Why ask when you can give?
     
  2. [quote name='"Perpetual Burn"']A Zen disciple was practicing meditation under a bridge when some young boys noticed him and began throwing rocks at him. The disciple noticed they were throwing rocks but was determined not to be disturbed in his meditation.

    The boys enjoyed throwing the rocks at the monk especially when they hit him in the head. Despite getting pelted with rocks, the monk remained in silent meditation. The monk began bleeding but did not move a muscle until he decided his meditation was over.

    The bloody disciple returned to the monastery and shared with his Master his experience eager to prove to him that he had great will power and could not be disturbed.

    The Master simply said, 'You should have moved.'[/quote]
    haha, this ones great. Subbed - I know I'll feel right at home in this thread :)
     
  3. A Buddha

     
  4. I've seen this before, and tend to not like it, but I think it is likely I am not understanding the meaning.
     
  5. ^He couldn't not be a Buddha.

    No matter what he drank or didn't drink.

    Same for everyone.
     
  6. Yes, this occurred to me. Given that interpretation, I like it. I was hoping that was what it meant...lol
     
  7. There once was a Zen master, who had a faithful but very naive student, who regarded him as a living buddha. Then one day the master accidentely sat down on a needle. He screamed, "Ouch!" and jumped into the air. The student instantly lost all his faith and left, saying how dissappointed he was to find that his master was not fully enlightened. Otherwise, he thought, how would he jump up and scream out loud like that? The master was sad when he realized his student had left, and said "Alas, poor man! If only he had known that in reality neither me, nor the needle, nor the 'ouch' really existed."
     
  8. Lol did you just make that one up.?
     

  9. I think it might've been cause it threw him right into the direct experience and teaching and whatnot. Like before words and symbols and this and that, the direct understanding/knowing/experiencing of something. His symbol that packaged up and referred to it all had been taken away and he was unprepared to form a whole new one and was forced into direct knowing. I might be wrong though thats just what i get from it lol
     
  10. #110 madmarek, Aug 1, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 1, 2012
    Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked: "What do you seek?"

    "Enlightenment," replied Daiju.

    "You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?" Baso asked.

    Daiju inquired: "Where is my treasure house?"

    Baso answered: "What you are asking is your treasure house."

    Daiju was enlightened! Ever after he urged his friends: "Open your own tresure house and use those treasures."

    Another good one.

    Hogen, a Chinese Zen teacher, lived alone in a small temple in the country. One day four traveling monks appeared and asked if they might make a fire in his yard to warm themselves.

    While they were building the fire, Hogen heard them arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He joined them and said: "There is a big stone. Do you consider it to be inside or outside your mind?"

    One of the monks replied: "From the Buddhist viewpoint everything is an objectification of mind, so I would say that the stone is inside my mind."

    "Your head must feel very heavy," observed Hogen, "if you are carrying around a stone like that in your mind."
     
  11. Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was still falling.

    Coming around a bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono and sash, unable to cross the intersection.

    "Come on, girl" said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud.

    Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he no longer could restrain himself. "We monks don't go near females," he told Tanzan, "especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?"

    "I left the girl there," said Tanzan. "Are you still carrying her?"
     
  12. [quote name='"madmarek"']

    Lol did you just make that one up.?[/quote]

    Nope, that was an excerpt from the book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche.
     
  13. #113 dankydankk, Aug 2, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 2, 2012
    Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today."

    They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.


    "Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.

    "Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.

    "Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

    "It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

    "It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

    "It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

    They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said."

    "Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.



    This is the jainist version of 6 blind men, which has allowed Jainism to live in harmony with the people of different thinking. They have never broken their pacifist view even though their the oldest standing religion on earth, but This is known as the Syadvada, Anekantvad, or the theory of Manifold Predictions or truths.
     
  14. Care to explain it I don't get it. If the needle nor the ouch nor him didn't exist then why was the master sad?
     
  15. [quote name='"madmarek"']

    Care to explain it I don't get it. If the needle nor the ouch nor him didn't exist then why was the master sad?[/quote]

    It plays on doubt. It teaches to not take doubts with exaggerated seriousness, or let them grow out of proportion. Because of realty's illusory and dreamlike nature, and the impermanence of all things.

    Someone else could possibly explain it better than I can :p
     
  16. I think the master was sad because the student was clueless.
     
  17. Doesn't sound like much of a master to me.
     

  18. but ah! who's to know?
     
  19. Recent dialogue in this thread reminds me of a parable... I can't remember the name of it or find it at the moment, so I will try to tell it as best I can...

    ---

    A blind Zen Master who would always hang out in the local markets surrounded by people was asked which of the local disciples he thought displayed the best understanding of Zen.

    He pointed out one disciple in particular but this created controversy and confusion among the disciples because the disciple the Master pointed out was known to be very temper-mental. But as the Master explained...

    "When he was happy, he did not hesitate to show it and all around him would recognize his emotions. When he was angry he did not hesitate to show his emotions either. There was no duality in him."

    ---

    If anyone knows the name of the parable or wants to share the original version, that'd be cool... but I can't remember where I found it...
     
  20. The Sage and The Trickster

    -----

    Many years ago in the ancient city of Vidisha there lived a very clever boy. This boy was the third son in a family of tricksters. Now, tricksters were poor people who lived not by farming or trade but by their wits. They were masters of the dice and the seed game. They told fortunes, sang songs and cast spells and were not above the picking of the occasional pocket. Now, this boy, was very clever and learned every trick his father had to teach very young.

    One day, as he moved through a crowd which had gathered in a sacred grove looking for loosely swung purses he heard a quiet voice speaking as he had never heard anyone speak before. So, he listened. The speaker talked of love and harmony. He talked of sitting quietly and finding oneness with the universe. When the speaker had finished people filed past and dropped offerings in his bowl. Now, our clever lad sensed that he was on to something. Here was a trick which had never occurred to him before and it was considerably less taxing than picking pockets or singing songs for drunken farmers. So, the boy decided to come back the next day and listen. He came back not just the next day but for many days afterward until he had learned the sermons by heart. He then acquired a monk’s saffron robe and found a place under the sweet blossomed Frangipani tree at the crossroads and began to preach the sermons he had memorized.

    Just as he had planned the crowds gathered and at the end of the sermon left offerings of food, drink and coin in his bowl. One day as he preached he noticed another boy listening intently. Every day the boy would return and listen to the sermons with rapt attention. After the conclusion of the sermon the new boy would remain, seated in the fragrant grove lost in meditation. This went on for several months until our clever young trickster had run through his memorized sermons. Determined to find a new place to preach and new sheep to shear the trickster gathered his belongings and prepared to move. As he did so he looked intently at the young student sitting deep in meditation under the trees and then … he saw. He saw for the first time that this young man had achieved the sacred state of oneness. He saw the look of profound peace and felt the radiated love and he wondered. How? How can this be? I am a fraud … a trickster … yet he has found what I pretended to find.

    That moment the trickster became a disciple.
     

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