The true path

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Just before Ninakawa passed away the Zen master Ikkyu visited him.  "Shall I lead you on?"  Ikkyu asked.

Ninakawa replied:  "I came here alone and I go alone.  What help could you be to me?"

Ikkyu answered:  "If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion.

Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and no going."

With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smiled and passed away.

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~ from Zen Flesh Zen Bones compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki

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A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger

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Buddha told a parable in a sutra:

 

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger.
He fled, the tiger after him. 

Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine

 and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. 

 Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, 

 another tiger was waiting to eat him. 

 Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black, 

 little by little started to gnaw away the vine.

 The man saw a luscious strawberry near him.

 

 Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry

 with the other. How sweet it tasted!
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from  Zen Flesh Zen Bones, 

 compiled Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki

 

 

 

 

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