Short story: The Zen master zenned on in his zen, as nobody was yet ready to replace him from his monastery

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The Zen master, Artrop Zerploski, had recently given a koan, constructed by himself, to his students to solve. The best answering student would be appointed as the new Zen master of the monastery, as he, Artrop, was getting old, and he was going to soon retire, but still carry on in the background, but with not such a heavy workload, as before. This was his koan: "Emptiness is never really empty of anything except that which you empty it of." One student said that this meant, that there really no such thing as emptiness, as everything contains some energy in it, no matter how small. Another student said that it meant that emptiness is only empty because we have taken things out from it, leaving it empty, and so all emptiness is an artificial construct, whereas the natural situation of all things is not to be empty, but full of the energy of love. The last student to have a go at this koan said, this koan just shows the coming senility of our master. He has an empty mind now, and describes his own self here, but his mind is empty, not because of his Zen, but because it has become empty through lack of thoughts, due to his dementia. The master then spoke to the assembled students, and said: "Emptiness adds nothing, nor does it take anything away from itself, or from anything else, for that matter." "In mathematics, zero is zero, and everything added to zero, still leaves zero there, as the new number is zero plus that number, but which is not zero now, but that number." "Emptiness is the field from which all else springs, so in potential, emptiness is everything." "I see that none of you is yet ready to step into my shoes, and so, I must continue on now, as your Zen master." "'If emptiness is endless, then everything rests in emptiness.'" "Dejan Stojanovic, a Serbian poet, said this." "Yes, emptiness is all, and all springs forth from emptiness into existence." '"Everything unfolds from emptiness.'" Lao Tzu, the great Chinese philosopher, said this. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com The Zen master zenned on.