Zen story: Zen proverbs, or koans, are not usually the whole truth, but they can point you towards it.
By emptychair
@innertalks (23744)
Australia
October 6, 2020 9:57pm CST
The newly appointed Zen master, Jokron Zerhosko, at the Dohan monastery, was trying to sort out with his mind, this famously well-known Zen saying.
"Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft can you be extremely hard and strong."
He had a problem with this proverb, because, he never wanted to be extremely hard and strong. He wanted to be softly humble, full of love, not extremely positioned on any hardness ledge, at any time.
The master emptied himself of all thought, and he felt his heart beating strongly, energetically with only love.
He was not hard with this love, but softly one with all, being hardly one with all, is not being one with all, at all, because you rub up against the other parts of that loveness, or love, abrasively then, causing pain to all who feel you.
He was pleased with this, and he thought to himself,
"Not all Zen proverbs are really true, but they are there for us to think about, and help us to reach our own position of truth in regarding them."
Then he remembered, how his own old master, the great Zen master, Dogen, used to put it.
"If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?"
The Zen proverbs lead us back to ourselves, where and only where then we can find the truth, sitting behind the saying, within our own selves.
Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com
The Zen master wanted softness over hardness every time, but that did not make him soft, it made him loving.
4 people like this
5 responses
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
7 Oct 20
The wave is pliable, the rock is not. who wins over time?
2 people like this
@innertalks (23744)
• Australia
7 Oct 20
Does anyone really ever have to win?
Competition is the resort of the loser, not the winner, because to compete is to lose in the end.
Go with love, without competing, and just love.
The rock and the wave both have their own positions within love, and no competition is ever necessary, in being a part of love, which never bothers about the survival of the fittest mentality, because in love's oneness, all survives, always, forever.
The choice only is how much you individually choose to love, or not to love, as not loving is a choice too.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23744)
• Australia
8 Oct 20
@DocAndersen Winning against what, though?
What is the Universe competing against, itself? If so, why?
Love, itself, is not competitive, love only loves.
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
8 Oct 20
@innertalks spect i would argue that in fact winning is a part of the universe.
2 people like this
@Shiva49 (28397)
• Singapore
7 Oct 20
Many think one needs to be tough to be a CEO.
I was not as I wanted everyone to feel counted and involved.
It was not top down style and not bottom up also, but all participating
That approach made a salutary effect on the fortunes of the company.
Yes, some sayings/proverbs are not suitable all the time.
Though my directors might have thought I was soft and even meek, pliable, in the end everyone won.
One can be steadfast in principles but need not be uncompromising.
As Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping said, "it does not matter whether the cat is black or white, it has to catch mice".
2 people like this
@innertalks (23744)
• Australia
7 Oct 20
Thanks, siva.
Yes, a win-win for everyone, is often the best outcome, from a logical viewpoint, and from love's viewpoint too.
The problem is though, that not many people live logically, or from love either, for that matter.
That quote, about the cat, is typical of what a general, or a leader, would generally make.
He is categorising/generalising all cats as only having one useful function to him, and to others like him.
He is showing his own greedy nature, of wanting all of nature to serve him. He is exploiting nature, trying to use it only for his own benefit.
I wonder what he would have thought about Mahatma Gandhi's cat.
Gandhi's cat was of the same nature as Gandhi, believing in non-violence to all.
It refused to capture mice, and it was still a cat, in every way, perhaps, more conscious than most other, mice-chasing cats are.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28397)
• Singapore
8 Oct 20
@innertalks I agree even other species have love in their hearts that are a lesson for us too to think, ponder, even emulate.
I have seen videos of lionesses and leopards protecting baby impalas, but some from our species just see them as "fake news"!
We term other species as "wild animals", "worse than animals", but our monstrosity can beat them hands down.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28397)
• Singapore
8 Oct 20
@innertalks As we are from the same source, we have similar feelings more than we care to admit and our love pales in comparison when compared with dog's though we have expressions that are less than fair to them like dog- eat-dog world.
1 person likes this
@Nakitakona (59987)
• Philippines
7 Oct 20
In everything there is always a contrast of thoughts. In lexicopraphy, if there's a synonyms, there are also synonyms. As you have written, soft is contrast with hard; pliableness, strength.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23744)
• Australia
7 Oct 20
Yes, most things here in our Universe have an opposite, except for love.
Nothing could ever be an exact opposite for all that love is. It will always fall short in some way.
God has no opposite either. The Devil is not his opposite. The Devil is just who he is.
God is just who he is. Nothing could ever be his exact opposite.
God made the Devil too, so somewhere in him, he, the Devil, still has a bit of love, and God in him too.
So, he cannot be an exact opposite of God, pure evil only.
@innertalks (23744)
• Australia
7 Oct 20
Thanks, I like to write that way, and I try to include a few lessons, in everything that I write.
@jassmine (1460)
• Morocco
7 Oct 20
"If you are unable to find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?"
I think sometimes we need to change so we can find the truth or some of it, I am talking here the change that you will make on yourself in a voluntary manner, not forced by any external factors
2 people like this
@innertalks (23744)
• Australia
7 Oct 20
Yes, change is necessary now, but this is only because, we once moved away from truth.
Change is necessary only because we do not embrace love with our mind fully, as God placed love in our heart to live from entirely, but we chose to take on the exploits of having a mind, which involves us in choice, and about making the right, or wrong choice, which requires wisdom, growth, and understanding of the love in our heart to make choices from the mind, to help us in our life.
God originally set up life perfectly to work without the mind, as we know it all in our heart, and innately living from this knowing requires no mind, only direct loving action, at all times, but we chose to want a wisdom, an ego, and other consciousness ways, including a depository of unconscious knowledge too, rather than just accessing instead, the storehouse of all knowledge, that exists in our heart.
God left us with this choice, with which we will eventually grow back to where we once where, but now with the wisdom of God attached consciously to us, rather than just knowingly innately felt in a sort of distanced way from God, because we do not trust the innate knowledge, and want to built it for ourselves in a body, that never lasts us anyways, and will be lost at the end of our life anyway too.
