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Drop all 'isms'
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Mind of a Sage
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Judging a saint
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The Fake Monk
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Rinzai's Answer
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Mystic Rengetsu
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Zen
Master Sekito
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Zen Sage & Thief
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Zen Master in Jail
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Buddha’s message
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The Game of Chess
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Innocence is Divine
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Master's Compassion
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Knowledge is Trouble
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Respond with awareness
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Tetsugen
3 set of
sutras
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You are already a Buddha
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Sound of one Hand Clapping
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Master waits 4 right Moment
- Stories 1 - 2
- Stories 3 - 4
- Stories 5 - 7
- Stories 8-9
- Stories 10
- Stories 11
- Stories 12-14
- Stories 15-16
- Stories 17-18
- Stories 19 - 21
- Stories 22 - 24
- Stories 25 - 27
- Stories 28 - 32
- Stories 33 - 36
- Stories 37 - 38
- Stories 39 - 41
- Stories 42 - 44
- Stories 45 - 46
- Stories 47 - 48
- Stories 49 - 50
- Stories 51 - 53
- Stories 54 - 56
- Stories 57 - 59
- Stories 60 - 61
- Stories 62 - 64
- Stories 65 - 66
- Stories 67 - 68
- Stories 69 - 72
- Stories 73 - 75
- Stories 76 - 78
- Stories 79 - 82
- Stories 83 - 86
- Stories 87 - 89
- Stories 90 - 91
- Stories 92 - 94
- Stories 95 - 97
- Stories 98 -101
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8. Great Waves
In the early days of the Meiji era there lived a well-known wrestler
called O-nami, Great Waves. O-nami was immensely strong and
knew the art of wrestling. In his private bouts he defeated even his
teacher, but in public he was so bashful that his own pupils threw
him.
O-nami felt he should go to a Zen master for help. Hakuju, a
wandering teacher, was stopping in a little temple nearby, so O-nami
went to see him and told him of his trouble.
‘Great Waves is your name,' the teacher advised,' so stay in this
temple tonight. Imagine that you are those billows. You are no
longer a wrestler who is afraid. You are those huge waves sweeping
everything before them, swallowing all in
their path. Do this and you will be the greatest wrestler in the
land.'
The teacher retired. O-nami sat in meditation trying to imagine
himself as waves. He thought of many different things. Then
gradually he turned more and more to the feelings of the waves. As
the night advanced the waves became larger and
larger. They swept away the flowers in their vases. Even the Buddha
in the shrine was inundated. Before dawn the temple was nothing but
the ebb and flow of an immense sea.
In the morning the teacher found O-nami meditating, a faint smile on
his face. He patted the wrestlers shoulder. 'Now nothing can disturb
you.' he said. ‘You are the waves. You will sweep everything before
you.'
The same day O-nami entered the wrestling contests and won. After
that, no one in Japan was able to defeat him.
9. The Moon cannot be Stolen
Ryokan, a Zen master, lived the simplest kind of life in a little
hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening a thief visited the hut
only to discover there was nothing in it to steal.
Ryokan returned and caught him. 'You may have come a long way to
visit me,' he told the prowler, 'and you should not return
empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.’
The thief was bewildered. He took the clothes and slunk away.
Ryokan sat naked, watching the moon. 'Poor fellow,' he mused, 'I
wish I could give him this beautiful moon.'
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