Zen Short Story: Feeding on the right fodder is good for us
By emptychair
@innertalks (23745)
Australia
February 7, 2022 6:52pm CST
The Zen Master, Dropez Resposkhi, used to collect sayings, stories, and other similar things, writing them down into his book, which he titled, "Preaching Fodder".
He would trot one of these readings out, whenever he gave a talk to his students.
"Let go, or be dragged,”
is a Zen Proverb, that he loved to quote, and to illustrate with this story.
"John died before his wife, but she refused to drag the sorrow of his death along with her until her death too."
"She loved John truly from her heart, and this removed, in its way, all of the sorrow in her mind."
"Love always overcomes, all other feelings, with itself, when we put love first, before all else, like this."
"That short story shows us the power of our hearts to overcome the thoughts, and feelings, of our mind, and body."
"The only way to fully let go is to love. When you hate, you are not free."
"Hate drags you along instead, but even hate eventually drags you back again to love too, as all paths eventually lead you back again to love."
"Love is the endpoint to every path, and you will get there in one way, or another, one day."
Then he would end his talk with another good Zen quote, such as this one:
"Be master of mind, rather than mastered by mind."
"An old Zen Proverb."
And yet, he would then add,
"A true master though, allows his heart to rule his mind, and in his mind, his soul then is the master of it, using it as a tool, going through his heart first, not standing tall, as a standalone tool of itself."
"A standalone tool, being used by itself, often makes a fool of you, because you are a soul, not its tool, the mind."
Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com
"Love is the absence of judgment." Dalai Lama
The Zen master loved to quote his favourite sayings to anyone who would listen to him.
2 people like this
2 responses
@Shiva49 (28402)
• Singapore
8 Feb 22
Keeping it simple gives us peace of mind.
Getting our priorities right helps
"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience" - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude." - Denis Waitley
Love is a cure-all of all our ills.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23745)
• Australia
8 Feb 22
Happiness is a spiritual experience? I am not so sure about that.
What is happiness, though?
Many have asked that question.
Happiness is a by-product of love, loving.
Happiness is the perfume that you smell, and the feeling of love that you feel, when love is being actively alive in you being you as much as you are allowing it to be.
Block love, and you will always be unhappy to some extent too.
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi, said that about happiness.
So, he thought that happiness was some type of a state, that we can experience, dependant on these other things too.
He was wrong to my mind though, as we can never be truly happy unless our hearts are alongside of us too, and so we are in tune with the love in our hearts, and living from it actively/fulfillingly too.
He left love out of his equation, which the inclusion of, is the most important factor of them all, for us to be happy.
So, as much as to love, is also being spiritual, I guess that Denis Waitley was pretty right on the button, and happiness is indeed a spiritual experience, and we can never just be happy outside of it being a spiritual experience then, as physical and mental goals achieved, only ever bring a fleeting happiness shower at best into our lives, not a continual shower of happiness, coming to us from the clouds of love always overhead, and in our hearts, of us too.
We need to let love reign supreme in our lives not to be rained on, or reined in, by anything else besides.
@innertalks (23745)
• Australia
9 Feb 22
@Shiva49 If happiness is just a state of our mind, it could easily be lost, when our mind state changes.
I think that happiness goes deeper than that.
Its roots are in our hearts, permanently put there, and it is us that grows our happiness outwardly from these beginning roots, but the growth level does depend on our conscious (mind) choice to connect to, and to live through our hearts, and so to maintain a happy state of mind, as a consequence of that decision too.
"When we open our heart, not our mind, to love, then miraculously our mind is healed as well."
Celia Hales (From her article, Caught in our minds, by Celia Hales.)
Is this true, or not?
I think so, because our mind should remain a tool to our heart, but if it tries to do our heart's work for us, this will never work.
@Shiva49 (28402)
• Singapore
9 Feb 22
@innertalks It is said happiness is a state of the mind.
Many are happy when they achieve their simple goals.
A few raise their bar and want to lead a blissful life.
That requires an attitude of gratitude and a state of gratefulness for the blessings of life here.
Love all without borders could obliterate the hurdles that the mind builds and gets preoccupied with.
I have found the poor are easily satisfied and that gives them fleeting phases of happiness amid their other worries.
As for myself, I try to hang on to an oasis of happiness only to be pushed out by the relentless uncertainty and challenges of life!
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