Zen story: Be like the worm. You were one once!

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The old Zen master, Gregor Respuskin, was watching a bird, who had some worms in its mouth. He said to a nearby student. "It will feed those to its young, which it puts above itself in priority to eat." "When we study Zen, we also sometimes open up a can of worms, which seemingly we must also consume to see the zen behind the methods, of our master." "Be like the worm." "The worm is a creature that mostly lives under the ground, but comes up when it rains. It seeks moisture, as it likes to feel wet around itself at all times." "You must seek God for the same reason to feel love around yourselves, at all times too." "Worms must keep moist at all times, and when it rains, they often emerge from the soil, to slither along the ground to a new location, quicker than they can tunnel through the ground, underground." "They will come out under the cover of darkness, as during the day, the soil surface is too hot and dry." "At these times, though, they can be eaten by a passing bird, or if they venture onto a footpath, and are still there when the sun comes out, they will die there, as they will dry out, and shrivel up dead, as they cannot breathe through their skin when they are dried out, like that." "Hence the saying, '"the early bird catches the worm."' This is a very old saying, by an English historian named, William Camden, (1551 to 1623)." "They must catch the worm before sunlight arises." "Do not tread on any worm, as it deserves its life as much as you do." "Humans came from worms. They evolved from a small worm-like creature that lived in the sea, more than 500 million years ago." "So, let things be as they are, and only change things where it is necessary to change them." The Zen master then stopped talking, and started to tend the plants in his garden. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com The early bird catches the worm, but not usually for itself, but for its own young.