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.Tags: buddha\, buddism, enlightenment, 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.
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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.Tags: 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.”
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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.
