Tag: wise
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Zen Stories ☯
The pupils of the Tendai school used to study meditation before Zen entered Japan. Four of them who were intimate friends promised one another to observe seven days of silence. On the first day all were silent. Their meditation had begun auspiciously, but when night came and the oil lamps were growing dim one of […]
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Zen Stories ☯
“Tattoo inside your eyelids this reminder: ‘you are the messenger, not the message. You are just like everyone else.’ ” This was the advice given by a charismatic Zen teacher to a class of Zen teachers-in-training. “What do you mean?” they asked her. “I’ll begin with a story about a besieged town that was surrounded […]
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Zen Stories ☯
Zen teachers train their young pupils to express themselves. Two Zen temples each had a child protégé. One child, going to obtain vegetables each morning, would meet the other on the way. “Where are you going?” asked the one. “I am going wherever my feet go,” the other responded. This reply puzzled the first child […]