Zen story: When questioning the questioner, creates a dead end

The more that we try to hold onto our I, the further we move away from enlightenment.
@innertalks (23734)
Australia
December 6, 2021 7:50pm CST
The old Zen master, Flohla Zerbrocke, had been head of the Zendusk monastery, for the last twenty years. A master from a nearby monastery, then paid him a visit, and he asked him, about a student, who had left Flohla's monastery, and had just turned up at his monastery. He said that the man seemed a bit unusual in the extreme. He had the habit of disagreeing with everything that anybody said, himself included. "How did you handle him, when he was in your monastery?" this master asked of Flohla. Flohla replied, "I always just said to him, who is it that is asking me that question?" "He would always answer me," "'Why, it's me, of course.'" "And then, I would reply," "The me that is me is the me that is you, and the question joins us together, as long as we each answer it ourselves, so go find your own answer, and let the question be you, not me." "He always went off after that to think about what I had said, until the next time, when he would fall back into his ways, and ask me still another question." "He did not know that such dead-ended questions only bring him back to his "I" to ask a further question from this illusionary entity, which he thinks that he is, whereas we can never really find this "I", as in reality, it does not even ever exist, as such." "He wanted to hold onto his "I", though, and have an enlightened "I", rather than simply being his being, not eyeing his "I"." "He went to you to see if you could enlighten his "I", of which I, nor nobody else, can ever really do." "When you do not create an "I", you find that you are already enlightened within God." Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com The more that we try to hold onto our "I", the further we move away from enlightenment.
5 people like this
3 responses
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
7 Dec 21
finding the we within me, is about flipping an m.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
7 Dec 21
Yes, that's an astute observation to make. When we flip over our own sense of importance a bit, the we, or our place in the whole, suddenly appears more meaningful to us then too. We can only flip over the "I", if we do not make it a capital "I", then it, our small "i" (if we allow it to stay small, and humble) becomes an exclamation point "!", and we live with more point to our life, because we are joining ourselves to the "we" then too.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
8 Dec 21
@DocAndersen Yes, without "I" in life, life wouldn't be complete. Life needs each "I" to be fully life as itself. The biggest "I" is not in life though, it is in love, invisible to us, until we place our own "I" back into it too, and then we find our real life is in God too, and we live it from love. Live turns into love, when we put our "i" into that love, and live love in life. Life outside of God, always carries a smaller "i" in it, but we try to add back our own bigger "I", and so we see ourselves as life itself, rather than seeing that life only exists when it becomes really alive by us, in us, keeping our "i" small, and rounding it into an "o" so that we see the love in life then too, and so then we live love every day of that life too.
3 people like this
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
8 Dec 21
@innertalks i is the most dangerous, and the least effective noun. Everyone always says there is no I in, whatever word they choose next. but there is I in Life!
2 people like this
@Nakitakona (59987)
• Philippines
7 Dec 21
I personality is egoistic. It is me not you. It is you not me. It is I and it is I
2 people like this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
7 Dec 21
Yes, most of us are living for ourselves, but Jesus Christ, himself, did say, "not my will, but yours," so we should look at shifting our "I" to align, and to be a part of God's will for ourselves too. When we join our "I" to God, we almost disappear, into his oneness then, and we live a life of service for God, with his love fully alive, and living fully, within us, too.
2 people like this
@Nakitakona (59987)
• Philippines
11 Dec 21
@innertalks One scripture which I read stated that we are only in the service of our God if we serve our fellow beings.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
11 Dec 21
@Nakitakona Yes, l agree. I think God made us to work best with love, when we serve our fellow beings.
2 people like this
@Shiva49 (28366)
• Singapore
8 Dec 21
Yes, Hindu scriptures tell us to merge with creation by forgetting the dichotomy of duality in thinking that we are separate from creation and nature around us. Then it opens a new vista of enlightened thinking. Our feelings are the same though each has to go through different experiences, we still can attune to others' feelings when they have to deal with tough issues like health and family. That leads us to more empathy and understanding. One cannot prosper in isolation as we are in this ride together.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
8 Dec 21
Yes, we can help each other to smooth the bumps in each other's rides, by packing their wheels with more springs of love, by loving them more from ourselves. Love doesn't remove the bumps, but it does help to make our lives run more smoothly over those bumps.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
9 Dec 21
@Shiva49 Yes, thanks, siva. The prime mover in our lives must always remain love. The rest should be byproducts of that loving too, like empathy, understanding, connection, wisdom, like you said. Without such love, we struggle hard, perhaps forever, never finding any of these byproducts existing for real in our lives either. We also need a good mind attached to our heart of love, that can act as a filter, to filter out all of the non-love sediments still left in our thinking, beliefs, and unconscious programmings too.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28366)
• Singapore
9 Dec 21
@innertalks Well said Steve, empathy, and understanding are byproducts of the prime-mover - love.
1 person likes this