Short story: A zen master is bested by an oak tree, or was he?

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The Zen master, Tanzin Doslinko, was walking through his monastery grounds, when he saw one of his students, sitting besides a large tree, talking to it. The master, walked over to him, and he asked the young student: "Does the tree reply to you, my friend?" The student stopped his talking, and thought for a minute about his reply to his old master. He then said: "Yes, the tree always replies to me, even as I talk, it talks to me in reply too." "This tree is an old oak tree, and it signals its answers to me too. It will wave a branch at me to see if I got its reply to me." "A tree has a root brain, as gifted as our brain is, and so it shares a degree of consciousness with us too." "A tree has a soul, and a spirit too, and this part of it sends us a telepathic message, that we can pick up, when we are in tune with it." '"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees."' "The great English poet, William Blake, (1757 to 1827) said this." "A wise man talks to a tree and receives its answers. A fool would never even try this." "Oh," replied the old Zen master. "Oh, and Oh, again." And, he kept walking, and left his student to talk some more to the tree. As he walked off, he thought to himself. "Perhaps that tree is a Zen master, and I am the poor sap, thinking that I am a Zen master." But, then he added this thought to his thoughts too: "I guess that love is speaking to us from every part of creation, if we but have the ears to here its message." Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com Love is like a tree, that puts its roots in our hearts. We should grow from that love, and with that love, as it grows within us, nurtured by the love of God.