FULL AWARENESS
A Zen Story
After ten years of apprenticeship, Tenno achieved the rank of Zen teacher. One rainy day, he went to visit the famous master Nan-in. When he walked in, the master greeted him with a question, "Did you leave your wooden clogs and umbrella on the porch?"
"Yes," Tenno replied.
"Tell me," the master continued, "did you place your umbrella to the left of your shoes, or to the right?"
Tenno did not know the answer, and realized that he had not yet attained full awareness. So he became Nan-in's apprentice and studied under him for ten more years.
A Zen Story
After ten years of apprenticeship, Tenno achieved the rank of Zen teacher. One rainy day, he went to visit the famous master Nan-in. When he walked in, the master greeted him with a question, "Did you leave your wooden clogs and umbrella on the porch?"
"Yes," Tenno replied.
"Tell me," the master continued, "did you place your umbrella to the left of your shoes, or to the right?"
Tenno did not know the answer, and realized that he had not yet attained full awareness. So he became Nan-in's apprentice and studied under him for ten more years.
posted by kitchenette soul at 6:10 AM
4 Comments:
Very good story.
Infact I was just talking to a friend, how we all can elimiate the many negative thoughts and emotions like anger, frustration, hatred.....by just being aware of what is happening within us. It is like, we all are aware that when we drink alcohol, we know that we lose our senses, and after we come out of it, we realise what happened when other's say what all nasty things we have done in the drunk state. Similarly Anger and many more negative emotions, take us to the same state of losing our senses and they can be dealt with by being aware of our own emotions.
Again Awareness comes from living only in the moment, like what is said in the next post in this blog. Awareness and living in the moment can actually become great instruments in watching our own life like a movie. It is like you are the observer of your own movie
called "My Life" :-)
We all run to the movie theater for watching a 2 hr film when we have a life time of film running in front of us.:-)
But it is hard to practise this, with environment and Biological processes contstantly acting on us. To win over them is the challenge of life.
with best wishes
Suman
Dear Sumonk: Yes Awareness is the key. To be a witness. Watching emotions helps them to pass away. Thank you for your encouraging response. Zen is actually simplicity. Their is nothing simpler that this.
Dear Velan: I liked it so much I could help sharing it with everyone.
Awareness is being God. Watching from the eye of awareness means, the one that watches is God.
Buddha once shooed away a fly. But he did the same action one more time. His disciple asked him why he did it twice. Buddha replied, "The second time, I did it with awareness." Awareness in thought, word and action matters.
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