Short Story: The Zen master that bested the Kung Fu master without a fight
By emptychair
@innertalks (23742)
Australia
August 5, 2020 12:18am CST
Subtitle: A Kung Fu master meets his match in a Zen master.
Soto Makdim was a Kung Fu master, who also knew a fair bit about Zen, and Taoism too.
He boasted that he could beat anybody either in fight, or in mind.
He was the renowned founder of MakBakDieMie Kung Fu.
His method of fighting was to hit the joints, and weak spots of the body.
He would strike then, at the places behind the knee, in the soft jointed side of the elbow, into the armpit, into the throat, and his favourite strike was to hit you on the bridge of your lip, or just below the nose.
When he met the Zen master one day, in the grounds of a Zen temple, he said to the Zen master.
"One strike from me, and your Zen is no more."
The master simply replied, in kind.
"With no strikes from me, you are already dead."
He said this with such a great authoritative confidence, that the Kung Fu master wondered what he had meant here.
The Zen master smiled, and winked once.
Then he let out with a loud cry, of, "SHU"
The Kung Fu master was taken aback, what was this, "SHU".
The Zen master smiled again.
And, he whispered this time:
"If the Shu fits wear it, if not, go on your way."
The Kung Fu master went on his way, defeated by the Zen master, without a strike, or a word being said, both in mind, and in body.
Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, freeimages.com
The Kung Fu master was good, but was beaten by being "shushed" away.
5 people like this
6 responses
@amitkokiladitya (171988)
• Agra, India
5 Aug 20
A good master can always definitely make us find a way out
2 people like this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
5 Aug 20
Yes, that's why they are a real master, I think. They will always find the right way out of a problem.
2 people like this
@amitkokiladitya (171988)
• Agra, India
5 Aug 20
@innertalks yes .and the success of a student greatly depends upon the master.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
5 Aug 20
@amitkokiladitya That's often true, but sometimes the student can make his own way past a bad master too, other times, he is lead astray by a bad master, sometimes very deceptively, and subtly so.
2 people like this
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
5 Aug 20
i have heard many variations of this story, that the reality of the arrogance is what led the combined master astray that if we are limited in this world by our excellence we cannot see our own weakness.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
5 Aug 20
Yes. the paradox of perceived excellence in our minds closes the doors of our real excellence in our hearts. We lose love, and replace it with arrogance, pride, and anger, mixed in with a certain superior attitude too, which means we have forgotten the value of humility too.
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
6 Aug 20
@Shiva49 Yes, a master could not see properly without his "pupils".
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28387)
• Singapore
6 Aug 20
@innertalks A pupil needs a master and the master needs a pupil too.
Soon when the word spreads and with more followers the agenda of the master changes as they tend to feed off each other.
Kipling's words are tough to emulate in a real world even by the so called masters who also lose their heads just like common folks when raised not necessarily to stratosphere:
"If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch" - siva
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
8 Aug 20
Yes, nobody understands a Zen master's words; that's the point of them, to bypass the mind, to drop you into your heart, and to feel the truth, rather than just think about it.
1 person likes this
@sunil4ya (185)
• Bangalore, India
9 Aug 20
@innertalks Well-said...bypassing the mind is indeed a challenging as well as a rewarding task...
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
9 Aug 20
@sunil4ya Zen has puzzle statements, called koans, that help its students to do that.
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
6 Aug 20
Yes, thanks, siva.
You "shooed" me how to properly spell "shuued", because the Zen master would have spelt it with Shu in it too I suspect.
The other Zenmaster was more just a "Shu" off.
I have a bit of fun writing these tales, it makes the day in lockdown here more easy to take.
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
6 Aug 20
@Shiva49 You taught yourself English, from those smooth-talking commentators, probably because you loved cricket too.
I remember trying to piece together some Russian, when I was playing chess, to try to understand their commentary too, that was only written Russian though, and I wasn't russian to learn it too badly, to make a bad pun.
The Sleeping Kingpiece on our chessboard should make a new move and mobilise his pawns in some new way, to attack those marauding black knights, jumping now all over the place, now spreading their horse manure, everywhere.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28387)
• Singapore
6 Aug 20
@innertalks Yes Steve, this lockdown has started to bite, leave psychological scars especially on the elderly and the children.
Those above sixty tend to have comorbidities, qualifications they acquire with age! They are advised to stay at home but that cannot go on and on like now.
I do go out but only if necessary but there are others cooped up at home. If one tests positive, he is turned into a villain for bringing doom and gloom to the neighborhood.
What we took for granted has flown out the window as we look wishfully at the simple pleasures of life that are denied for now. Maybe, the devil is holding sway and making hay when the sun shines on his horizon!
Again, this too shall pass, hopefully before we do too! siva
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
5 Aug 20
Thanks. I am pleased that you liked my short story here.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
5 Aug 20
Yes, that's why I used the "Shu" word, to inject some humour into it.
Serious life is often funny, and funniness is often the solution to serious problems.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23742)
• Australia
5 Aug 20
@piyushbhatia1 Oh, no wonder that you thought my story was funny then...lol...
1 person likes this
@piyushbhatia1 (11695)
• India
5 Aug 20
@innertalks That word repeated twice means urination time in my country.
3 people like this
