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Su Dongpo was an avid student of Buddhist teachings. He was quick-witted and humorous; as a Zen Buddhism follower he was very serious and self-disciplined. He often discussed buddhism with his good friend, Zen Master Foyin. The two lived across the river from one another.
Following is an interesting and famous story about him and Zen Master Foyin.
One day, Su Dongpo felt inspired and wrote the following poem:
稽首天中天， 毫光照大千； 八风吹不动， 端坐紫金莲。
I bow my head to the heaven within heaven, Hairline rays illuminating the universe, The eight winds cannot move me, Sitting still upon the purple golden lotus.
The “eight winds (八风)” in the poem referred to praise (称), ridicule (讥), honor (誉), disgrace (毁), gain (得), loss (失), pleasure (乐) and misery (苦) – interpersonal forces of the material world that drive and influence the hearts of men. Su Dongpo was saying that he has attained a higher level of spirituality, where these forces no longer affect him.
Impressed by himself, Su Dongpo sent a servant to hand-carry this poem to Fo Yin. He was sure that his friend would be equally impressed. When Fo Yin read the poem, he immediately saw that it was both a tribute to the Buddha and a declaration of spiritual refinement. Smiling, the Zen Master wrote “fart” on the manuscript and had it returned to Su Dongpo.
Su Dongpo was expecting compliments and a seal of approval. When he saw “fart” written on the manuscript, he was shocked . He burst into anger: “How dare he insult me like this? Why that lousy old monk! He’s got a lot of explaining to do!”
Full of indignation, he rushed out of his house and ordered a boat to ferry him to the other shore as quickly as possible. He wanted to find Fo Yin and demand an apology. However, Fo Yin’s door closed. On the door was a piece of paper, for Su Dongpo. The paper had following two lines:
八风吹不动， 一屁弹过江。 The eight winds cannot move me, One fart blows me across the river.
This stopped Su Dongpo cold. Fo Yin had anticipated this hot-headed visit. Su Dongpo’s anger suddenly drained away as he understood his friend’s meaning. If he really was a man of spiritual refinement, completely unaffected by the eight winds, then how could he be so easily provoked?
With a few strokes of the pen and minimal effort, Fo Yin showed that Su Dongpo was in fact not as spiritually advanced as he claimed to be. Ashamed but wiser, Su Dongpo departed quietly.
This event proved to be a turning point in Su Dongpo’s spiritual development. From that point on, he became a man of humility, and not merely someone who boasted of possessing the virtue.
Zen is full of stories like the one Iron Rabbit just told. Many of them are too good to be true.
I mean, if a teacher tries to do such tricks on a daily basis, people will stop taking him seriously and he simply will be regarded a fool.
Find a monk and I’ll bet he will be an ordinary human being. Don’t look down on the monk for that, but have some more respect for ordinary human beings.
I am NOT a Zen monk or claim anything of that nature. However I am a very odd person and some of the things I have done in the spirit of compassion look very odd. I think that it takes a very wise person to know what to do in many cases and it may look very odd. the rest of us can give regular counselor style tasks and advice, but I think others just step outside of social norms for higher good.
That also does not mean they always have to be correct either,
I have met a few Zen Masters, meaning people who have received official Dharma Transmission and the authority to teach from a particular lineage. I have also met a few Masters of Zen, who felt no need to hold official office. All of them were friendly and laughed a lot, and capable of surprising you when you least expected it, but certainly not bizarre.
There were eccentric Zen Masters, of course, some not so ancient. Master Seung Sahn founded Kwan Um Zen and almost got kicked out of his temple as a young monk because he was caught stealing people's shoes in the middle of the night and arranging them in strange patterns for the monks and nuns to discover the next morning. They thought a playful demon spirit was haunting the temple. He just wanted to wake people up from their empty daily rituals.
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
Two Zen monks were walking down the road. First monk says: "These pine trees are magnificent." The second monk slaps him across the face. First monk: "Why did you do that?" "I'm a Zen monk so I can get away with all kinds of weird stuff like that."
Two Zen monks were walking down the road. First monk says: "These pine trees are magnificent." The second monk slaps him across the face. First monk: "Why did you do that?" "I'm a Zen monk so I can get away with all kinds of weird stuff like that."
八风吹不动， 一屁弹过江。 The eight winds cannot move me, One fart blows me across the river.
This stopped Su Dongpo cold. Fo Yin had anticipated this hot-headed visit. Su Dongpo’s anger suddenly drained away as he understood his friend’s meaning. If he really was a man of spiritual refinement, completely unaffected by the eight winds, then how could he be so easily provoked?
With a few strokes of the pen and minimal effort, Fo Yin showed that Su Dongpo was in fact not as spiritually advanced as he claimed to be. Ashamed but wiser, Su Dongpo departed quietly.
During the Kamakura period, Shinkan studied Tendai six years and then studied Zen seven years; then he went to China and contemplated Zen for thirteen years more.
When he returned to Japan many desired to interview him and asked onscure questions. But when Shinkan received visitors, which was infrequently, he seldom answered their questions.
One day a fifty-year-old student of enlightenment said to Shinkan: "I have studied the Tendai school of thought since I was a little boy, but one thing in it I cannot understand. Tendai claims that even the grass and trees will become enlightened. To me this eems very strange."
"Of what use is it to discuss how grass and trees become enlightened?" asked Shinkan. "The question is how you yourself can become so. Did you ever consider that?"
"I never thought of it in that way," marveled the old man.
"Then go home and think it over," finished Shinkan.
Some use unconventional methods to teach sometimes. That does not mean that all Zen monks are bizarre. None of the Zen monks I've ever met are bizarre. Sometimes people just need to be urged or caused to "think outside the box".
That fart story is bizarre. Just kidding. It's a good one. Humor takes us outside our ordinary way of thinking sometimes, which is a good thing.
Two more stories - emphasizing humor - pointing to the absurdity of classifying reality into categories - breaking down the barriers of logic and reasoning - as a momentary expression of liberation - from what? - from identity......
A Zen master lay dying. His monks are all gathered around his deathbed, and the senior monk leans over and asks the master for any final words of wisdom for his monks. The old master weakly says, "Tell them Truth is like a river." The senior monk relays this message on to the other monks. The youngest monk in the group is confused, and asks, "What does he mean that Truth is like a river?" The senior monk relays this question to the master, and the master replies, "O.K., Truth is not like a river."
Another Zen story tells us about Zenkai, the son of a samurai, who becomes the retainer of a high official. He falls in love with the official's wife, and his adultery is discovered. In self defense, Zenkai kills the official and runs away with the wife. They both become thieves, and eventually Zenkai becomes disgusted with the woman, and leaves her. Wanting to make up for his past, Zenkai decides to dig a tunnel through a mountain where many people die while trying to pass over it. After working for thirty years on this monumental tunnel, alone, the son of the slain official finds Zenkai and wants to kill him for revenge. Zenkai tells the son that he will give up his life, but only after the tunnel has been completed. So the son waits and waits for several months, as Zenkai continues digging. The son eventually grows bored of waiting and decides to help Zenkai dig, and he comes to admire Zenkai's perseverance and strong character. When the tunnel was finally completed, Zenkai offers his life to the son, but the son replies teary-eyed, "How can I cut off my own teacher's head?"
I'd say that the main source of bizarreness of Zen in general comes from this notion that Zen "is a special transmission outside the words and scriptures". So in order to express this "not reliance on words" people came up with different ways to show their understanding with the help of shouting, hitting and things like that. However, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about this whole thing.
Daido Roshi, a modern American Zen master, once told a story of when he was at some conference where Dalai Lama was giving a speech. He was sitting in the first row in his formal attire and as Dalai Lama was walking by, he looked at Daido Roshi and said: "Zen master! Ha ha!" And hit him. So not only the Zen monks are strange .
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
Daido Roshi, a modern American Zen master, once told a story of when he was at some conference where Dalai Lama was giving a speech. He was sitting in the first row in his formal attire and as Dalai Lama was walking by, he looked at Daido Roshi and said: "Zen master! Ha ha!" And hit him. So not only the Zen monks are strange .
Comments
to answer your question, can you limit creativity?
Following is an interesting and famous story about him and Zen Master Foyin.
One day, Su Dongpo felt inspired and wrote the following poem:
稽首天中天，
毫光照大千；
八风吹不动，
端坐紫金莲。
I bow my head to the heaven within heaven,
Hairline rays illuminating the universe,
The eight winds cannot move me,
Sitting still upon the purple golden lotus.
The “eight winds (八风)” in the poem referred to praise (称), ridicule (讥), honor (誉), disgrace (毁), gain (得), loss (失), pleasure (乐) and misery (苦) – interpersonal forces of the material world that drive and influence the hearts of men. Su Dongpo was saying that he has attained a higher level of spirituality, where these forces no longer affect him.
Impressed by himself, Su Dongpo sent a servant to hand-carry this poem to Fo Yin. He was sure that his friend would be equally impressed. When Fo Yin read the poem, he immediately saw that it was both a tribute to the Buddha and a declaration of spiritual refinement. Smiling, the Zen Master wrote “fart” on the manuscript and had it returned to Su Dongpo.
Su Dongpo was expecting compliments and a seal of approval. When he saw “fart” written on the manuscript, he was shocked . He burst into anger: “How dare he insult me like this? Why that lousy old monk! He’s got a lot of explaining to do!”
Full of indignation, he rushed out of his house and ordered a boat to ferry him to the other shore as quickly as possible. He wanted to find Fo Yin and demand an apology. However, Fo Yin’s door closed. On the door was a piece of paper, for Su Dongpo. The paper had following two lines:
八风吹不动，
一屁弹过江。
The eight winds cannot move me,
One fart blows me across the river.
This stopped Su Dongpo cold. Fo Yin had anticipated this hot-headed visit. Su Dongpo’s anger suddenly drained away as he understood his friend’s meaning. If he really was a man of spiritual refinement,
completely unaffected by the eight winds, then how could he be so easily provoked?
With a few strokes of the pen and minimal effort, Fo Yin showed that Su Dongpo was in fact not as spiritually advanced as he claimed to be. Ashamed but wiser, Su Dongpo departed quietly.
This event proved to be a turning point in Su Dongpo’s spiritual development. From that point on, he became a man of humility, and not merely someone who boasted of possessing the virtue.
Many of them are too good to be true.
I mean, if a teacher tries to do such tricks on a daily basis, people will stop taking him seriously and he simply will be regarded a fool.
Find a monk and I’ll bet he will be an ordinary human being.
Don’t look down on the monk for that, but have some more respect for ordinary human beings.
That also does not mean they always have to be correct either,
...he was moved by ridicule.
There were eccentric Zen Masters, of course, some not so ancient. Master Seung Sahn founded Kwan Um Zen and almost got kicked out of his temple as a young monk because he was caught stealing people's shoes in the middle of the night and arranging them in strange patterns for the monks and nuns to discover the next morning. They thought a playful demon spirit was haunting the temple. He just wanted to wake people up from their empty daily rituals.
First monk says: "These pine trees are magnificent."
The second monk slaps him across the face.
First monk: "Why did you do that?"
"I'm a Zen monk so I can get away with all kinds of weird stuff like that."
During the Kamakura period, Shinkan studied Tendai six years and then studied Zen seven years; then he went to China and contemplated Zen for thirteen years more.
When he returned to Japan many desired to interview him and asked onscure questions. But when Shinkan received visitors, which was infrequently, he seldom answered their questions.
One day a fifty-year-old student of enlightenment said to Shinkan: "I have studied the Tendai school of thought since I was a little boy, but one thing in it I cannot understand. Tendai claims that even the grass and trees will become enlightened. To me this eems very strange."
"Of what use is it to discuss how grass and trees become enlightened?" asked Shinkan. "The question is how you yourself can become so. Did you ever consider that?"
"I never thought of it in that way," marveled the old man.
"Then go home and think it over," finished Shinkan.
then i blush.
That fart story is bizarre. Just kidding. It's a good one. Humor takes us outside our ordinary way of thinking sometimes, which is a good thing.
A Zen master lay dying. His monks are all gathered around his deathbed, and the senior monk leans over and asks the master for any final words of wisdom for his monks. The old master weakly says, "Tell them Truth is like a river." The senior monk relays this message on to the other monks. The youngest monk in the group is confused, and asks, "What does he mean that Truth is like a river?" The senior monk relays this question to the master, and the master replies, "O.K., Truth is not like a river."
Another Zen story tells us about Zenkai, the son of a samurai, who becomes the retainer of a high official. He falls in love with the official's wife, and his adultery is discovered. In self defense, Zenkai kills the official and runs away with the wife. They both become thieves, and eventually Zenkai becomes disgusted with the woman, and leaves her. Wanting to make up for his past, Zenkai decides to dig a tunnel through a mountain where many people die while trying to pass over it. After working for thirty years on this monumental tunnel, alone, the son of the slain official finds Zenkai and wants to kill him for revenge. Zenkai tells the son that he will give up his life, but only after the tunnel has been completed. So the son waits and waits for several months, as Zenkai continues digging. The son eventually grows bored of waiting and decides to help Zenkai dig, and he comes to admire Zenkai's perseverance and strong character. When the tunnel was finally completed, Zenkai offers his life to the son, but the son replies teary-eyed, "How can I cut off my own teacher's head?"
Daido Roshi, a modern American Zen master, once told a story of when he was at some conference where Dalai Lama was giving a speech. He was sitting in the first row in his formal attire and as Dalai Lama was walking by, he looked at Daido Roshi and said: "Zen master! Ha ha!" And hit him. So not only the Zen monks are strange
Trees are coming, taiyaki? :buck: