Zen Short Story: The use of force versus loving with love

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The aged Zen master, Frekilda Ruskleven, was talking to another Zen master about the use of force within their teachings. Many a story has been circulated about a Zen master hitting his student, with his walking cane, for example, to try to bring about an immediate mind shift, in that student. Frekilda said that he never thought that the use of such force was ever justified, even to bring about a quick result in a student. It is far better to use love, rather than such disciplinary ways, was his idea about this subject. "Force always empties you of love, as love never forces itself on anyone, and all force is contrary to love's gentleness of its way," was the way that he put it. "We should rather just let love take its course, within our lives, not try to force our self to take its course instead, by any means at all." "Love gives of itself, never violently, but just from itself." "Violence is a lack of real connection to what is, by our connecting, or trying to force connection, from our self, not from love." "And so, we then leave love to be our self, rather than living from love itself, in our self." The old master liked to talk in a double-talking way, about force, sometimes too, like this: "Let go of nothing, but hang onto nothing either, not hanging on is the same as letting go, in some ways but not in all ways, as not letting go is allowing what is to be, whereas hanging on is not allowing what is to be, but trying to force it to be." "If that seems rather confusing, I will give you an example regarding love, of either letting go, or hanging on to love." "Never let go of love, and never hang onto it, too tightly either, as hanging on is an action of the mind, and so is letting go, when all that needs to take place is an opening of the heart to allow love to flow without blockages, caused by both letting go, and hanging on." Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com "Force does exist in nature, but with my Zen, my nature is only ever to love," was how this old Zen master, summed up his own ways of teaching Zen.