Spiritual Stories of the East, Volume 1

Editor’s Note: This translation from Justin’s two-volume spoken word CD, Spiritual Stories of the East, is compliments of a generous teacher donation. If you would like to hear Justin’s voice telling this and 19 more stories, you will find the MP3 digital files (and CDs) on https://justinstonetcc.com/product-category/tai-chi-chih-cds/

Ordinary Teaching, Empty Cup (Volume 1, Track 6)

Zen masters use ordinary, everyday incidents as opportunities to teach, and it is usually difficult to realize they are teaching. One time, when my Zen teacher was in America, I took my friend Dick and his wife to see the Roshi. Dick was very steeped in Indian teaching, full of the holy and the unholy, and that is quite different from the Zen way.

When we arrived at the small Zendo, the Roshi graciously invited us into the kitchen to have some tea with him. Zen teachers do not wear lays around their neck and carry themselves in a self-important manner. The teacher’s apt to be sweeping the sidewalk when one arrives. For about an hour and a half, we sat in the kitchen eating cookies and sipping tea. I could tell that Dick and his wife were enjoying themselves and feeling right at home with their enlightened host.

Just before leaving, Dick thanked Roshi and told him how impressed he was with Roshi’s manner. In an impetuous moment, he turned to the master and said, “I want you to teach me.” Roshi was astonished. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last hour and a half,” was his comment.

Once, when a well-known Zen teacher was in Los Angeles, two people I knew, one a very successful trial lawyer and the other, a metaphysically inclined woman from the Baltic states in Europe, asked me if I could arrange an interview with him. This was not hard to do, and on a very warm September day, the three of us went to see the Roshi.

It was so warm that the lawyer was wearing only a t-shirt. As we entered the room before I could even introduce the two, the Roshi spoke: “Take off your overcoat,” he told the lawyer. The latter was completely mystified.

“Remove your hat and gloves,” roared the master. “If we don’t strip down naked, how can we meet?” Again, the lawyer did not comprehend. Of course, the Roshi was saying that the visitor was completely weighed down by his own opinions. He was not open to learning from the master; he wanted only to have his own ideas confirmed.

Roshi often told me that the ignorant man is the easiest to teach, that the one who has read a good deal is stifled by his own opinions. Only an empty cup can be poured into.

A little while later in the meeting, the European lady asked: “Roshi, why are there English, French and German? Why are there different nationalities, and why are there wars?” The Roshi held up his open hand, “Why do I have five fingers?” He asked an answer to the concerned woman. I walked over to the master and counted his fingers. Yes, he has five fingers. I confirmed. When the interview was finished, the man, woman, and I left together. “Why didn’t the master answer my question,” she asked. “He did,” I replied. “He gave you the only possible answer.”

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Who and What You Are (Volume 1, Track 7)

It seems to me that the great task in life is to find out who and what you are. Once that is discovered and your true nature uncovered, your troubles tend to disappear.

Many serious seekers have asked the question: Who am I? Two of those troubled by this question were the great Indian poet and translator, Rabindranath Tagore, a deeply spiritual man, and the Japanese Tenko-san, a former Zen monk who founded a community known as Ittoen devoted to service and sometimes known as the conscience of Japan — it is a conscience that nation will [sic] need as it becomes more and more materialistic.

Tagore wrote the following poem:

The first day’s sun has asked at the manifestation of new being:

who are you?

No answer came.

Year after year went by.

The last sun of the day,

the last question utters on the western seashore in the silent evening.

Who are you?

He gets no answer.

Here we note that the brilliant Tagore ends in the same bewilderment with which he started. Perhaps he was a tormented man.

The simple Tenko-san also asked the same question. He said in a poem known as Juno No Commio (The light that is not two):

With one rice bowl, 1000 homes

alone I roam for countless autumns

being neither empty nor phenomenal,

returning to life without pleasure or pain,

warm days and green grass at the river’s bank,

cool breezes sweeping calmly beneath the bridge.

Should you by chance ask who are you?

A bright moon floating over the water.

So, Tenko-san’s surprising answer shows he knows who and what he is: a bright moon floating over the water. When one has glimpsed his self-nature, an act known as kensho in Zen, there grows in him, what I have called, in one of my books, the growth of certainty. No longer is he blown about like a weightless tumbleweed in a high wind. He knows who and what he is.

A good example of this inner certainty may be seen in this story. A Chinese monk was walking through the streets of a town on a rainy day. Puddles of water had formed in the streets. Looking down, the monk noticed a small body struggling in one of the puddles. It was a scorpion, slowly drowning.

Without hesitation, the monk reached down and plucked the creature from the water, at which the scorpion promptly bit him. “Ohhh,” he exclaimed. If you’ve ever been bitten by one (I have), you’ll know how it hurts. As soon as the scorpion was placed on the dry street, it promptly turned and walked back into the water. Seeing it drowning again, the monk reached down and plucked the perverse little creature from the water a second time. “Ohhh.” Once again it had bitten him.

A passerby noticing this little drama, walked up to the monk. “You fool,” he exclaimed, ‘Don’t you know that every time you lift that scorpion out of the water, it will bite you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do know it,” calmly answered the monk. “It is in a scorpion’s nature to bite me. But I also know it is in my nature for me to keep pulling him out of the water.”

Know thyself, said Jesus, as did other saints.