Buddhism

Nature Favours Nothing In Particular
There is another point of view of life, which gave the presen...

Nature And Her Lesson
Nature offers us nectar and ambrosia every day, and everywher...

Enlightenment Is Beyond Description And Analysis
In the foregoing chapters we have had several occasions to re...

Thing-in-itself Means Thing-knowerless
How, then, did philosophers come to consider reality to be un...

The Third Step In The Mental Training
To be the lord of mind is more essential to Enlightenment, wh...

The Social State Of Japan When Zen Was Established By Ei-sai And Do-gen
Now we have to observe the condition of the country when Zen ...

The Manliness Of The Zen Monk And Of The Samurai
Thirdly, both the Zen monk and the Samurai were distinguished...

The Irrationality Of The Belief Of Immortality
Occidental minds believe in a mysterious entity under the nam...

Life In The Concrete
Life in the concrete, which we are living, greatly differs fr...

The World Is In The Making
Our assertion is far from assuming that life is now complete,...

The Parable Of A Drunkard
Now the question arises, If all human beings are endowed with...

Buddha The Universal Life
Zen conceives Buddha as a Being, who moves, stirs, inspires, ...

The Bad Are The Good In The Egg
This is not only the case with a robber or a murderer, but al...

The Second And The Third Patriarchs
After the death of the First Patriarch, in A.D. 528, Hwui Ko ...

Man Is Not Good-natured Nor Bad-natured But Buddha-natured
We have had already occasion to observe that Zen teaches Bud...

Bodhidharma's Disciples And The Transmission Of The Law
For details, see Chwen Tang Luh and Den Ka Roku, by Kei Z...

Hinayanism And Its Doctrine
The doctrine of Transience was the first entrance gate of Hin...

Origin Of Zen In India
To-day Zen as a living faith can be found in its pure form on...

The Ten Pictures Of The Cowherd
The pictures were drawn by Kwoh Ngan (Kaku-an), a Chinese...

Enlightened Consciousness Is Not An Intellectual Insight
Enlightened Consciousness is not a bare intellectual insight,...

The Parable Of The Monk And The Stupid Woman

The confused or unenlightened may be compared with a monk and a
stupid woman in a Japanese parable which runs as follows: "One
evening a monk (who was used to have his head shaved clean), getting
drunk against the moral precepts, visited a woman, known as a
blockhead, at her house. No sooner had he got into her room than the
female fell asleep so soundly that the monk could not wake her nap.
Thereupon he made up his mind to use every possible means to arouse
her, and searched and searched all over the room for some instrument
that would help him in his task of arousing her from death-like
slumber. Fortunately, he found a razor in one of the drawers of her
mirror stand. With it he gave a stroke to her hair, but she did not
stir a whit. Then came another stroke, and she snored like thunder.
The third and fourth strokes came, but with no better result. And at
last her head was shaven clean, yet still she slept on. The next
morning when she awoke, she could not find her visitor, the monk, as
he had left the house in the previous night. 'Where is my visitor,
where my dear monk?' she called aloud, and waking in a state of
somnambulation looked for him in vain, repeating the outcry. When at
length her hand accidentally touched her shaven head, she mistook it
for that of her visitor, and exclaimed: 'Here you are, my dear, where
am I myself gone then?" A great trouble with the confused is their
forgetting of real self or Buddha-nature, and not knowing 'where it
is gone.' Duke Ngai, of the State of Lu, once said to Confucius:
"One of my subjects, Sir, is so much forgetful that he forgot to take
his wife when be changed his residence." "That is not much, my
lord," said the sage, "the Emperors Kieh and Cheu
forgot their own selves."

The last Emperor of the Ha dynasty, notorious for his
vices. His reign was 1818-1767 B.C.

The last Emperor of the Yin dynasty, one of the worst
despots. His reign was 1154-1122 B.C.

Ko-shi-ke-go.

Next: Each Smile A Hymn Each Kindly Word A Prayer
Previous: Shakya Muni And The Prodigal Son

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