Zen story: The feather ruffling Zen master

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The old Zen master, Enrico Zerboski, had become different in his teachings to other Zen masters, over the many years, while he had been the head master, at the Ryoko monastery. He would often debunk many of the long held beliefs of other Zen masters. They would say that the present moment is everything, and yet, nothing is permanent. He would counter this by saying the present moment is nothing, but impermanence, of itself. The world lives as itself from moment to moment, and so the present moment is fleeting, and a figment of imagination, being held by your mind only, because in truth, all marches incessantly on, and there is no moment, that could ever be said to be the present moment in reality, or in creation. The soul, though, is actually separate from creation, as God is too, and so there is a self separate from the World. The world is a mere tool of God, and our of soul, and we are always separate from it, but we can become immersed in it, sometimes too deeply, so that we lose contact with our real soul self then. When we let go of our attachment to the world, we see then our attachment to God. We need to value this attachment to God, as it gives us soul life, independently from him, but paradoxically, still remaining part of him too. Awareness, and enlightenment, are not necessary to the mind, as our soul is always aware, even without its mind. Stop chasing after stuff with your mind, and be who you really are, a soul self. And so, the old Zen master brought a gust of fresh thinking to the old staidness of entrenched Zen beliefs. Sure, he ruffled a few feathers, but his own feathers remained on his own bird of paradise, as he did so. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com The old Zen master was a beacon of light, to all who came into contact with him.