Short story: A Zen koan on practical love, life, and living truth.

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The Zen master, Fredik Fredikpo, was dying, and he was wondering if his life had been mostly lived in vain, too loftily so, or if it had been of some practical use to help, at least someone, other than just himself. He had mostly just lived in Zen Temples, and given out Zen teachings, but what had he done for the greater world, nothing much at all, he was thinking ruefully, to himself then. Just then, a student appeared at his door, and said to him: "A nearby newspaperman has just told us how you saved, and changed his life, once." "You told him not to just write sensationalism types of news, but to write some feel-good true stories of real people living too." "He had done this, by his writing of a story about you, and so this proves to us, how practically perfect was your life, as well as being zen perfect too." The master picked himself up, and said, "Well, you have helped me to see past my death into the reality of it as still being life," and there, and then, he died with a smile again on his face. The student wrote this Zen koan on the urn containing his ashes. When is a life practically useful? When it is practically useful! Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com (Picture) The Zen master working in the kitchen. He always pulled his weight, in all parts of the monastery.