Zen story: Hard, and soft messages

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The old Zen master, Aricjh Zerploxki, was always softly spoken. His voice was not loud, and his words were soft, and not hard, nor harsh, either. His voice was rather musical, and pleasant, in the way that he always spoke. We all need to use such "soft" speech, and tailor-make our words for our student. We should talk to their needs, not to our needs. This type of delivery of our message leads to better understanding by the student. "We should talk softly, and gently, with love, from love", he would say, "not abrasively, cursively, dismissively, arrogantly, like a lot of Zen masters try to do, to change their students through their own pushingness of words, bashing them into submission, rather than enlightening them into love, with a real message, not a hardnosed truth, being addressed, just from its clinically correct lawful side." "Nobody responds to anger. Everybody responds to love." "Having a soft heart, in a hard world, takes love, not power. And yet, its message is more powerful than any other type of message could ever be." "Only the heart that is soft, can speak the truth. Hardness blocks truth, by holding it within itself." “'Only when you can be extremely pliable and soft can you be extremely hard and strong.'” "goes an old Zen Proverb, but I say, when you are hard and strong, you have left softness behind." "Love is never hard and strong. Love is always softly gentle, in its loving." "Love is the absence of hardness." “'The aim of spiritual practice is to cultivate love in us. In other words, to stop all those signals going on in our head that tell us not to love another.'” "Sri Avinash, a Vietnamese spiritual master said this, and this should be the aim of Zen, too." And with that, the master took leave of his assembled guests, who were listening to his little talk on soft Zen, spoken with a soft tongue, from a soft heart, and from a gently flexible mind too. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com The great Zen master would close his eyes gently, and speak as gently as a flowing brook flows its waters over some round rocks in its stream, without ever disturbing them, from their bed. Those who listened to him speak always felt the love of his words, though, just the same as the rocks felt the cool running water, cascading over them too.