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Zen Stories
5. If You Love, Love Openly
Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were
practicing meditation with a certain Zen master.
Eshun was very pretty even though her head was
shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly
fell in love with her.One of them wrote her a
love letter, insisting upon a private meeting.
Eshun did not reply. The following day the master
gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over,
Eshun arose.Addressing the one who had written her, she said:
'If you really love me so much, come and embrace me
now.’
6. No Loving-Kindness
There was an old woman in China who had supported a
monk for over twenty years. She had built a little
hut for him and
fed him while he was meditating.
Finally she
wondered just what progress he had made in all this
time.
To find out, she obtained the help of a girl rich in
desire. 'Go and embrace him,' she told her;' and
then ask him suddenly:
"What now?"
The girl called upon the monk and without much ado
caressed him, asking him what he was going to do
about it.
'An old tree grows on a cold rock in winter,'
replied the monk somewhat poetically. ‘Nowhere is
there any warmth.'
The girl returned and related what he had said.
‘To think I fed that fellow for twenty years!’
exclaimed the old woman in anger.' He showed no
consideration for your
need, no disposition to explain your condition. He
need not have responded to passion, but at last he
should have
evidenced some compassion.'
She at once went to the hut of the monk and burned
it down.
7. Announcement
Tanzan wrote sixty postal cards on the last day of
his life, and asked an attendant to mail them. Then
he passed away.
The cards read:
I am departing from this world.
This is my last announcement.
Tanzan
27 July 1892.
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