Zen Silence

Why being modest?

adu — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:12:27 +0000

Be a fool

adu — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:08:00 +0000

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A person may appear a fool and yet not be one. He may only be guarding his wisdom carefully. Always be a fool. This way it will be much easier for everyone to discover you!

What we seek and we never find

adu — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:03:41 +0000

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Poverty is your treasure. Never exchange it for an easy life. We often want to have all kind of things … and money:) but we often forget for what we are striving for. For what? Financial security? Safety? Or what? The happiest people don’t have things but have everything.

In the dark

adu — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:59:12 +0000

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Even though alone in a dark room, be as if you were facing a noble guest. Express your feelings, but become no more expressive than your true nature.

A friend

adu — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:39:48 +0000

There was once a rabbi who was revered by the people as a man of God. Not a day went by when a crowd of people wasn’t standing at his door seeking advice or healing or the holy man’s blessing. And each time the rabbi spoke, the people would hang on his lips, drinking in his every word.

There was, however, in the audience a disagreeable fellow who never missed a chance to contradict the master. He would observe the rabbi’s weaknesses and make fun of his defects to the dismay of the disciples, who began to look on him as the devil incarnate.

Well, one day the “devil” took ill and died. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief. Outwardly they looked appropriately solemn but in their hearts they were glad for no longer would the master’s inspiring talks be interrupted or his behavior criticized by this disrespectful heretic.

So the people were surprised to see the master plunged in genuine grief at the funeral. When asked by a disciple later if he was mourning over the eternal fate of the dead man, he said, “No, no. Why should I mourn over our friend who is now in heaven? It was for myself I was grieving. That man was the only friend I had. Here I am surrounded by people who revere me. He was the only one who challenged me. I fear that with him gone, I shall stop growing.” And as he said these words, the master burst into tears.

Longing to fly

adu — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:14:31 +0000

Owing to a variety of circumstances, the egg of an eagle found its way to a corner of the barn where the hen was hatching her eggs. In time, the little eaglet was hatched with other chickens.
Now as time passed the fledgling, quite unaccountably began to experience a longing to fly. So, it would say to its mother, the hen, “When shall I learn to fly”?
The poor hen was quite aware of the fact that she could not fly and hadn’t the slightest notion of what other birds did to train their fledglings in the art of flight. But she was ashamed to confess to this inadequacy, so she would say ” Not yet, my child, not yet. I shall teach you when you are ready.”
Months passed and the young eagle began to suspect that its mother did not know how to fly.But it could not get itself to break loose and fly on its own for its longing to fly had become confused with the gratitude it experienced towards the bird that hatched it.

Imagination vs reality

adu — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:45:31 +0000

“If you ever marry or take a mistress after I am gone, I shall return to hunt you,” said a dying woman to her husband.
So when he fell in love again some months after his wife’s death, he was horrified, but not surprised, to see her ghost walk into the house one night and accuse him bitterly of infidelity.
This went on night after night till he could take it no more and went to consult a Zen master, who said, What makes you so sure it’s a ghost?”
“The fact that she knows and can describe to me every single thing I’ve said and done and felt and thought.”
The master gave the man a bag of soybeans and said, “Make sure you do not open it, and when she appears to you tonight, ask her how many beans there are in the bag.”
When the man put that question to the ghost, it fled, never to return. “Why?” the man asked the master later.
The master smiled. “Isn’t it strange that your ghost knew only what you knew?” he asked.

It is just astonishing to see the use they make of their imagination…

Time is priceless

adu — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:19:58 +0000

A miser had accumulated five hundred thousand dinars and looked forward to a year of pleasant living before he made up his mind how best to invest his money, when suddenly the Angel of Death appeared before him to take his life away.

The man begged and pleaded and used a thousand arguments to be allowed to live a little longer, but the angel was obdurate. “Give me three days of life and I shall give you half my fortune,” the man pleaded. The angel wouldn’t hear of it and began to tug at him.

“Give me just one day, I beg of you, and you can have everything I accumlated through so much sweat and toil.”

The angel was adamant still.

He was able to wring just one little concession from the angel, a few moments in which to write down this note:
“Oh you, whoever you are that happen to find this note, if you have enough to live on, don’t waste your life accumulating fortunes. Live!

My five hundred thousand dinars could not buy me a single hour of life!”

When millionaires die and people ask, “How much did they leave?” the answer is, of course, “Everything.”
And sometimes, “They didn’t leave it. They were taken away from it.”

Or what an economics teacher would say: “Time is the only resource that can’t be recovered”.

Departure lounge

adu — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:05:54 +0000

A Sufi of forbidding appearance arrived at the doors of the palace. No one dared to stop him as he made his way right up to the throne on which the saintly Ibrahim ben Adam sat.

“What is it you want?” asked the King.

“A place to sleep in this caravanserai.”

“This is no inn. This is my palace.”

“May I ask who owned this place before you?”

“My father. He is dead.”

“And who owned it before him?”

“My grandfather. He is dead too.”

“And this place where people lodge for a brief while and move on—did I hear you say it was not an caravanserai?”

Everyone’s in the departure lounge!

Some will never learn

adu — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:20 +0000

A young man came to a master and asked, “How long is it likely to take me to attain enlightenment?”
Said the master, “Ten years.”

The young man was shocked. “So long?” he asked incredulously.
Said the master, “No that was a mistake. It will take you twenty years.”
The young man asked, “Why did you double the figure?”
Said the master, “Come to think about it, in your case it will probably be thirty.”

Some people will never learn anything because they grasp everything too soon. Wisdom, after all, is not a station you arrive at but a manner of traveling. If you travel too fast, you will miss the scenery.
To know exactly where you’re headed may be the best way to go astray. Not all those who loiter are lost.