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The Pot On The Table May 19, 2008

Posted by Kedar in alan watts, atheism, atheist, buddha\, buddhism, conflict, east, eastern, enlightenment, hindu, hinduism, karma, mahayana, oriental, philosophy, relativity, religion, spiritual, spirituality, story, tao, zen.
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This one is a well known Zen story.

One day one teacher decided to throw a puzzle at his students. When everyone assembled in the lunch room, he took a clay pot and kept in on the table in front of everyone.

“Without using any of the attribute such as color, material, shape, describe to me what is that on the table.” He challenged.

Nobody spoke for a while.

One student demanded more clarification.

“Simply tell me what it is without using any of it’s name.” Said the teacher.

At that point the cook came forward. He pushed the pot from the table. The pot fell on the ground and broke into pieces.

“It was what it is not any more.” Said the cook.

It is so true for so many things in our life. We recognize their existence, their importance only when they are gone. Because human mind is very good in grasping sensation, but not so good in noticing harmony. We can understand things only relative to the change they undergo. We fail to understand those things that are always with us.

When I dig deeper into this, I can see why Alan Watts , in his book “The way of Zen”, says Not only ear makes sound, but sound makes ear too.” Because we have ear, we know that there is something called sound. So ear makes sound. But if there was no sound, we would never know we have an organ called ear that is capable of hearing something called sound. So in a way, collectively, the sounds make ear.

The Color Of The Wildflower May 6, 2008

Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, buddhism, desire, east, eastern, enlightenment, hindu, hinduism, india, karma, mahayana, maya, oriental, philosophy, religion, spiritual, spirituality, story, subjective, subjectivity, tao, theory, zen.
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Two people were waiting on the bank of a river. They were waiting for the ferry to take them to the other side of the river. To kill the time, they started talking.

“I am a lifelong student. I have spent all my life searching for the truth.” The first one said.

“I feel I am about to find it.” He continued. ” I have been told that there is a teacher on the other side of the river who is very knowledgeable and insightful. If I get to meet him, he will help me get enlightened.”

“Very nice.” The second one said. “But are you sure you want to get enlightened? Are you sure that it will end all your problems?”

“Seems to me that you know nothing about enlightenment. It is eternal bliss. It is death of deaths. It is escape from the cycles of life. It is attained by only the most knowledgeable.” The first one replied.

“Indeed. I don’t know enough about enlightenment.” Said the second person. “But let me ask you a simple question. “

“Look at that.” Pointing to a wildflower at some distance , he said ” What color is that flower?”.

“That is a blue wildflower.” Said the first one.

“I wonder what color it will look to you when you are enlightened.” Remarked the second one.

That was the moment of enlightenment for the first person.

—

Substitute “enlightenment” with any other accomplishment you have in your mind, graduation, job, finding love or winning lottery, and you will realize that no matter what you achieve, a blue wildflower will always look blue.

No matter how big accomplishment you achieve or no matter how badly you fail, a big part of your life will remain the same. The color of the sky, taste of water, sensation of hot and cold will be the same. Mountains and rivers will look the same, breeze and sunlight will always feel the same.

So put every accomplishment, every pursuit in right perspective. Do not hold your entire life hostage to your pursuits.

Even the small part that changes as a result of culmination of pursuits is most of the times in our mind. Say you get a million dollars right now. All that changes is how you look at the world. Not the world. A million dollars will save you from some dangers, not all. It will not save you from earthquake.

This disillusionment is the beginning of spiritual journey.

The Truth At The Mountaintop April 7, 2008

Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, buddha\, buddhism, desire, east, eastern, enlightenment, hindu, hinduism, india, mahayana, oriental, philosophy, spiritual, spirituality, truth, yang, yin, zen.
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A monk was walking up a mountain when he met a peasant who was also on the same path. To kill the time, they started talking. The monk told the peasant that purpose of his trip was to find truth. The teacher of the monk had told that he would find the truth at the mountain top. The peasant said it was his daily routine to go up that trail and gather firewood.

As they were talking, the monk started teaching the peasant about the philosophy. The peasant was listening. But every once in a while he would pick up a dried wood stick and add it to the bundle on his shoulder. The monk was slightly irritated that peasant was not paying 100% attention to the valuable knowledge he was sharing. But he kept quiet.

When they reached the mountaintop, the monk asked the peasant “So do you understand what I taught you so far?”

The peasant nodded.

“What did you understand?”

The peasant lifted the bundle of firewood on his shoulder and threw it down. The string tying the bundle broke loose and the firewood scattered everywhere.

At that moment,the monk found his truth and he was enlightened.

–

Explaining a Zen story is like explaining a joke Best is one thinks about it himself/herself. But still let me give it a shot.

Basically what the peasant says is “Let go (of your desires, plans, actions, strategies).”

This is one of the Jataka story and the peasant is Bodhisattva in his previous reincarnation.

We all accoustomed to material world find this perplexing. If you fulfill your desires, then you get pleasure. So why should one let go of them? The point is fulfilling a desire conditions our mind to desire more.

Another way to look at it is like this. If you are unhappy because you don’t have something, then according to Zen, you are unhappy not because you don’t have something, but because you have something. Unhappiness is not because of lack of that thing, but it is because of existence of desire of that thing.

When you “externalize” desire like this, and see that it is like an extra tumor developed on your otherwise perfect mind, it is easier to understand how letting go helps.

“But letting go means accepting you are not capable of it. It’s like behaving a loser.”

Is Zen the way of a loser? No. It is the way of those who know that they have already won.

You Proved Me Wrong ! April 2, 2008

Posted by Kedar in atheism, atheist, buddha\, buddhism, east, eastern, hindu, hinduism, mahayana, objective, objectivity, oriental, philosophy, relativity, spiritual, spirituality, story, subjective, subjectivity, yang, yin, zen.
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One day a Zen master gave a lecture on philosophy. Hundreds of people listened to him for more than an hour. In the course of his lecture , somewhere he proposed a hypothesis saying something like A is same as B.

One of the listeners was listening intently. After the lecture, he hurried to the master and stopped him. The listener had brought lecture notes and diagrams with him. With much elaboration, he proved to the Zen master that the proposed hypothesis was wrong, and A was not same as B.

The Zen master smilingly nodded. Without a word of argument, he said “Very good. A is not same as B. Very true.” and turned to leave.

“Wait a minute.” The confused listener said. “You have studied all this for a lot longer time than me. I challenged you and disproved what you said and you have nothing to say?”

“My friend, you did not disprove what I said.” Replied the Zen master “You disproved what you heard.”

–

This is one of my favorite Zen stories. We always believe in purely objective interpretation of a information communicated. But almost always there is a difference between what I mean and what you understand. When I say the word “Computer”, the neural reaction that happens in your mind is different than that happens in my mind. That neural reaction is based on our individual experiences, moods, level of knowledge and many many things. Seems we can never escape the layer of subjectivity called individual mind.

Thus what you hear could be different from what I said.

Good Friends – Bad Friends March 20, 2008

Posted by Kedar in friends, friendship.
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A man in a village went to the teacher in ashram.

“I have five friends. I want to test and see who are real friends and who are not. Please help me.” He told the teacher.

“OK. You can try this. Go and tell your friends that you had a fight with your neighbor and he said some bad things about your family. Tell them that to protect your family’s honor, you are thinking of challenging him in a group sword fight. See what they say.”

Next day the man came to the teacher. He said “Three friends told me to go ahead and challenge. Two tried to pursue me otherwise. Clearly the three who care about my family’s honor are my best friends. Isn’t it?”

“Don’t reach to conclusion too soon. Now go back and send a message to all five that the sword fight is arranged at 8:00 tomorrow and the neighbor is going to show up with his friends. Request them to come and join your side.”

Next day the man came back to teacher, deep buried in thought. When teacher asked what happened, he shook his head and started telling the story.

“You are not going to believe this. Yesterday morning I sent messages to all five. And in the evening I got five messages back. Three of them said that they told me to go ahead with the challenge because they cared about my family’s honor, but they could not come and join me in sword fight because they were not good with swords.”

“And the remaining two?”

“They replied back saying that they told me not to go ahead with the challenge because they were not good with swords. But since I went ahead anyway, they are going to show up because they care about my family’s honor.”