 
Tales of Zen Buddhist Scoundrels

Mel C. Thompson

Copyright © 2003 & 2011, 2018

To find out the many ways you can help the ongoing efforts of all the authors in the Mel C. Thompson Publishing lineup, please use the contact information below:

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This book is dedicated to the late Roy Uchizono,

my first philosophy teacher at Fullerton College,

who saved countless souls from Fundamentalism.

Table Of Contents

Part I: The Voidness School

A Rival Teacher

Illicit Love

Terminology

Dive Bar Bodhisattva

Searching For The Atman

The Pyramid Of The Patriarchs

A Strict Diet

The Great Matter

Joker's Wild

Zen And The Art Of Not Golfing

A Night On The Town

No One In There

Tranquility

An Angry Monk And A Small Mouse

Marriage

Beauty

You're The Boss

The Philosopher

Definitions

Nameless Essence Meets Ten Thousand Things

Part II: The God Box

The Silent Buddha

Eternal Life

Holy Man

Wash Sheets / Fold Towels

Why Not Today

The God Box

The Begging Bowl

The Courage Of The Stoics

A Hopeful Renunciant

A Lifetime Of Emptiness

Interview With A Layman

A Convocation Of Bodhisattvas

Part III: Saved By A Moth

A Mediocre Student

After A Lifetime Of Practice

Ten Avatars

Criminal Justice

Sartorial Concerns

A Lesson In Logic

On The Legitimacy Of Zen

Conversions

The Evangelical Atheist

A Superiority Complex

Joker

Leaving Tracks

A Military Man's Dilemma

Not One Opening

A Confession Of Love

To Walk The Pathless Path

The Perfect Prayer

Bodhidharma

A True Buddhist

Listening To Heads

The High Art Of Blasphemy

Spiritual Upstart Meets Adamantine Mind

Self-Improvement

Part IV: Only The Wicked Ones

Renouncing The Faith

The Old Monk

The Story Of Politico

Martyr's Training

Brief Dialogues

A Divine Revelation

Karmic Questions

A Taoist Adept

No Inward Signs

Secret Revivalist Meets Big-Tent Evangelist

Boundless Generosity

Cause For Celebration

On Romance And Blackmail

Dialogues With Sister Dharmastream

Part V: The Great Pretense

After The Meeting

Atonement

Authenticity

Bipolar Bodhisattva

A Chat With King Yama

Courage In The Face Of Catastrophic Bodily Transitions

These Fragments Of Porcelain

God

The Idol Of Amida Fo Temple

What Joku's Student Saw

The Visiting Minister Said

Part VI: Your Card-Sharking Teacher

Li Po And Blind Donkey

Limitless Compassion

The Master's Ambivalence

The Master's Koans

A Meeting With The Creator

Mocha Bodhisattva

A New Student

Not Showing The Way

The Noble Eightfold Path

Part VII: No-Doctrine Buddha

Hell

The Fundamental Virtue

An Unhappily-Married Woman

Bodhidharma's Other Trip To China

Trying To Date Sister Dharmastream

Raging Monotheist Meets The Self-Denier

Sensei's Koans

One Great Path

Sins

Humility

Sensei's Fundamentalism

Visualization

Some Thoughts On The Trinity

Part VIII: California Upscale Suburban Believer

Heaven And Hell

Truly Devoted

Regarding The Diamond Sutra

Fujikami's Certification

Extinction

The Shitty World

Chronic Victim

The Tale Of Needy Void

Maitreya

The Celestial Dictator

Temple Doors

Discredit-Your-Religion Meets No-Date-Money

Dwelling In No Abode Whatsoever

Many sophomore college kids think Buddhism is gentle,

and that most other religions are based on fear.

Within a week of studying with me,

those kids learn what real fear is.

— The Dreaded Fujikami

Part I

The Voidness School

Everywhere else they cremate with fire.

Here we bury them alive.

— Linji

A Rival Teacher

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A rival Teacher confronted our Master. "Your Zen is not real Zen!"

Puzzled, the master scratched his head and said, "Then what kind of Zen is it?"

"It's fake Zen!" concluded the rival Teacher.

"I will believe you," conceded the Master, "but only if you can show us exactly what this fake Zen is like."

Illicit Love

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A monk convened with the Abbot. "A pretty, young, married woman keeps trying to lure me into adultery. What now?"

The Abbot replied, "If you sleep with her, you will become a hungry ghost for a hundred lifetimes. If you refuse her love, it's like murdering the Patriarchs."

Terminology

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A rather anxious fellow showed up to one of our Dharma talks with a copy of The Lotus Sutra. "Sensei, I was given this copy of the Lotus Sutra by a follower of the Nichiren Sect. Here the Buddha describes the attainment of Total Annihilation of the body and mind. How do you interpret this passage?"

Sensei replied, "I'm glad you asked about that. Those passages were of some concern to me when I was a student. Seeking to gain clarity on the matter, I set up a formal meeting with my Zen Master. He received me quite graciously. He had one of his assistants pour us tea and bring us cookies. He inquired about my health and my meditation practice. Towards the end of our meeting I brought up the critical question."

"Sir, have you read the Lotus Sutra?" I inquired.

"Yes I have. Why do you ask?" replied the Master.

"I'm worried," I said, "about the passages that refer to Total Annihilation of the body and mind. Perhaps something was lost in translation. What is your interpretation?"

The Master said, "I interpret Total Annihilation to mean Utter Destruction."

The visitor was a bit shaken by this response and seemed hesitant to say anything more. After a few moments of silence he said, "Total Annihilation and Utter Destruction? I find those prospects rather frightening."

A wide grin came across Sensei's face. "Yes Brother, you and me both."

Dive Bar Bodhisattva

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Sensei used to frequent a dive bar near Japan Town. The bartender was a burly fellow from Okinawa who dabbled in Philosophy.

"Sensei, during your last lecture you said psychiatry was good medicine for the mind. Could you clarify that statement?"

"Bartender," answered Sensei, "I'll have a shot of your best Russian vodka."

"I see what you mean," continued the bartender. "You also said that that exercise was good medicine for the body. Do you have any further thoughts on that?"

Sensei turned around quickly to ogle a new waitress. "Bartender, I'm crazy with lust for that woman."

"That's a sudden flash of insight for me," chuckled the bartender. "I recall you concluded your talk by saying Zen was good medicine for that which is neither body nor mind. Could you give me an example of something that is neither body nor mind?"

Sensei gulped down the vodka and slammed the shot-glass on the counter. "Bartender, pour me another one fast."

The bartender sneered comically and mused, "Sensei, if I didn't know better, I'd say you're trying to drown your sorrows."

"Wrong!" shouted Sensei. "You've got to drown the self before the sorrows come!"

Searching For The Atman

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Before the time of Siddhartha Gotama, Worn-Out-Sandals was walking from village to village when he happened upon Single-Minded-Practice coming out of a deep meditation.

Worn-Out-Sandals asked, "Have you found the Eternal Self yet?" Single-Minded-Practice replied, "I have searched my body and mind, practiced countless austerities and received training in every school of yoga, yet I am unable to find the Eternal Self in here."

Worn-Out-Sandals added, "I have walked around the world, beheld every natural wonder and studied every culture, yet I am unable to find the Eternal Self out there."

Single-Minded-Practice asked, "If the Eternal Self is not to be found inside us nor outside us, then where shall we look?"

Worn-Out-Sandals pointed to Single-Minded-Practice and noted, "A bee has landed on your robe."

The Pyramid Of The Patriarchs

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For the last several centuries the Patriarchs of our sect were chosen by an assembly of Abbots from around the country. After the election, the new Patriarch would ascend the Pyramid of the Patriarchs in the center of the Capital City. At the top of the pyramid was a platform just wide enough for a man to sit in the lotus position and thus become the point of the pyramid. It was said that many miracles and other supernatural phenomena took place on these auspicious occasions. Tradition had it that once someone got to the top, they were the Patriarch, no matter how they got there. For this reason the pyramid was heavily guarded.

It was winter and the Patriarch had died of natural causes. The countryside was covered with snow, making travel hazardous and arduous. The Election Ceremony was delayed several days as the assembly waited for Abbots from far away to make the tedious and uncomfortable journey.

As the days dragged on, a certain Abbot became impatient. It was well known that he considered himself a candidate for the Patriarchal Legacy, but he'd found out that most of the Electors were already planning to vote for someone else. The situation became unacceptable, so he approached his closest ally.

"Please forgive my immodesty, but I am overcome by desire. I must get to the top of that thing."

The other Abbot replied, "You mean the pyramid? Have you lost your mind? That kind of selfishness goes against every principle we've spent our lives teaching. You must get a grip on yourself."

The first Abbot continued, "The front of the pyramid is guarded by three monks, all armed with cudgels. I'm going to need some help doing this. I'm told that in your youth you were an expert martial artist, and even now you carry a wooden sword with you wherever you go."

"That's true, but it's been years since I've done any sparring. The sword is only an ornament now," protested the other Abbot.

"I'm going to do this with or without your help. Do you want to see me beaten black and blue?" demanded the first Abbot.

The other Abbot pulled the wooden sword out of his travel bag. "Brother, there better be a Bishop's post for me when you're made Patriarch."

The next day the two of them approached the front of the pyramid as though ready to pay homage to the memory of the Patriarchs. Three menacing monks stood at the bottom of the stairs, each with their hands itching to make use of their cudgels. The second Abbot approached the one in the center as if to ask some question, but when he got within a couple feet of him, he pulled out his wooden sword and knocked the cudgel out of the guard's hand. The other two monks rushed over, but were beaten away by the whirling wooden sword which seemed to come at them from every direction. In the ensuing chaos, the usurper rushed up the pyramid. The center guard gave chase, but the Abbot kicked the guard back until he tumbled down the structure.

A few of the most venerated Bishops in the Capital rushed out of their offices and saw the guards laying dazed on the ground. They looked up and saw that the usurper had made it to the top. They came over to the second Abbot and said, "Now we will have no choice but to appoint him Patriarch. We must tell everyone the election is off."

The usurper assumed the lotus posture on the very seat where all of the Patriarchs had sat before him. A strong gale came over the pyramid. From below one could see his clothes whipping in the wind. The top of the pyramid was glowing. The Cosmos opened up its secrets to the new Patriarch. He saw all of life in the three worlds. He saw The Future Buddha seated in Tushita Heaven and Amida Buddha presiding over billions of souls that had reached The Pure Land. He saw Tibetan mandalas, each with a hundred Buddhas spinning around a jeweled center stone. Each Buddha had four heads, and in each of the heads were dozens of eyes, all of which reflected countless solar systems. Billowing cloud formations thundered overhead, and multicolored rain poured out in torrents. Lightning struck in all directions and a shower of countless lotus petals floated down around him. Armies of arhats from ages past chanted The Heart Sutra to the sound of ten-thousand drums.

When the visions subsided, the usurper nonchalantly sauntered down from the pyramid and greeted the Elders. The senior Bishop smiled enthusiastically. "Well done, I wish I'd had the courage to do that long ago. Can you tell me how it felt to sit in such a venerable spot?"

A look of mild disappointment came over the usurper's face. "Let me tell you honestly, gentlemen, there is nothing much to this Patriarch business."

A Strict Diet

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A hefty, young Zen student approached the Master privately.

"Sensei, last week you confessed to having been a compulsive overeater in your youth. Judging by your slender appearance, you've somehow conquered that addiction. Lately my eating has gotten out of control, and I need to know what diet you went on to attain your ideal weight."

"In the morning," responded the Master, "I fed on Non-Substantiality. For lunch I feasted on Formless Vastness. For dinner I consumed generous portions of Clear Light."

"How did you muster the motivation to adhere to such a strict regimen," asked the student. "I can't seem to acquire the discipline."

"If I so much as reached for one extra biscuit, my Sensei would beat my fingers with a ruler until they swelled like sausages," chuckled the Master. "After that, Formless Vastness tasted pretty good."

The Great Matter

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My Zen Master said to me, "It is time you saw to this great matter of life and death. Go to the West Side Hospice and arrange to tour the grounds."

I arrived at West Side Hospice feeling a bit superior, certain that my years of harsh discipline and intensive studies had prepared me for what I would see. I was not sure which faith the patients at the hospice adhered to, but I felt confident that the majority of them believed in some silly thing or other and would in no way accept the loss of this mortal body as well as good Buddhists do.

The first ward the Director took me to contained a number of incredibly serene people, all of whom seemed perfectly cheerful, though a bit confused as to why they were there. "Don't they all realize that they're terminally ill," I asked the Director. "No, they don't," he replied. "This is a room of Christian Scientists, and they believe there is no such thing as death. They believe they've only come here to humor their relatives."

As we approached the next ward, I saw three muscular orderlies pulling a body out of a bed. The person had passed away right in front of the other patients. Strangely though, the patients were laughing. They gazed over at me, winking as though we were all part of some inside joke. "Hmm," I said, "they seem to be taking this a bit flippantly, don't you think?" "Oh yes," the Director responded. "They're Hindus who believe that the body is only an illusion. They celebrate every time one of them goes. Last week we had to order them to stop their parties before midnight. No one could get any sleep around here."

Further down we entered a very large section of the hospice. This was the section that housed Fundamentalists of various faiths. They were visibly straining to look confident as they argued among each other about whose doctrine would truly assure an afterlife in paradise. Some of them seemed to be sweating profusely, and one could see a trace of horror pass across some of their faces. But when one went to comfort them, they refused condolences, each one pushing an affected smile to their faces and saying something along the lines of, "Don't worry about me. At least I know where I'm going for eternity. But I will pray for you, since you don't seem to have a truly settled faith yet."

Next we arrived at the Atheist ward where one might expect to see some genuine panic. But like the Fundamentalists, they were defiant to the end. Each one boasted of their courage in the face of oblivion. They carried on extensively about how proud they were of themselves for not allowing fear to impede their integrity. One said to me, in an almost senatorial tone, "I don't need to lie to myself like the rest of you. I will live and die with truth as my only lamp."

"This is all very impressive," I remarked to the Director. "One would expect, in a facility of this size, filled with nothing but doomed people, that there would be more self-pity or self-doubt, a lot of complaining and worrying. What about the Agnostic ward? "No," the Director said, "they're the calmest of the whole lot. But there's one last section you may want to see." "Surely," I replied.

Finally we arrived at the Zen Buddhist ward only to find the place in a state of total disarray. I saw old sages in monk's robes doubled-over in pain, wailing like children with their faces in their hands, deeply sobbing in shamelessly searing tones. On various beds lay monks and nuns of all ages with fatal disorders, complaining bitterly about the nursing service, berating the doctors, rushing their relatives around imperiously. Still others lay in their beds praying aloud to all sorts of gods and goddesses, begging for mercy, petitioning for special favors from any divine being that had ever been rumored to exist. I became very angry and embarrassed for the practitioners of my faith, but I suppressed my frustration and asked the director, "Are you sure we're in the right room? These people seem to have no faith at all."

"Oh sure they do," snapped the Director. "If there's one thing I've learned about these Zen Buddhist fellows — when their time comes, they die for real."

Joker's Wild

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The door to the casino flew open and in rushed a prominent Elder of the congregation.

"Sensei! I can't believe it's true! You're a confirmed gambler? You dare to wear your monk's robe at a card table? Don't you realize you'll be discredited by every Abbot in town?"

"I relish the chance to be discredited. It toughens the character," replied the Master.

"What! Do you want to be denounced by all the authorities of our sect?" groaned the Elder.

"Their denouncements aren't worth the paper they're printed on," replied the Master sarcastically.

"And why is that?" asked the Elder.

The Master looked up from his hand and chuckled, "For one thing, they're all lousy poker players."

Zen And The Art Of Not Golfing

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One of the students at our Zen retreat abruptly left. He said, "I will find enlightenment through golfing, not meditation." We didn't believe him, figuring he'd become involved in the sport and forget all about enlightenment.

Much to our surprise, the former student became a widely-known professional golfer. Unfortunately, after several years of play, he'd never come in first place in a major tournament, and usually ended up in second or third place. The reason he usually placed second or third was because of a weakness in his putting. He could drive the ball down the fairway with enormous power and accuracy, but when he got to the putting green, he'd often botch easy shots, adding a point or two to his score.

He hired a golf coach to improve his game. He was determined to come in first place at an upcoming tournament. The coach brought him to a putting green and observed his technique.

"You're spacing out," said the coach. "You need to concentrate. Think about what you're doing. Don't act by instinct alone."

After days of trying to improve his concentration, the player found he became way too self-conscious and was putting worse than ever. At this rate the upcoming tournament would be a disaster.

"You're overdoing it. You're thinking too much. Play more from the heart," advised the coach.

The next several days saw the student trying his best not to intellectualize the game, but this confused him so much that he got angry and tossed a whole set of clubs into a lake.

The coach chided him. "You're too emotional. It's like you want it too much. Be a little more detached and not so overbearing." For hours and hours the student attempted to putt without attachment, but this made him depressed and apathetic.

After a few weeks of this struggle, the coach was dismissed, leaving the student more uncertain than ever. By the day of the tournament, the student had no idea how to approach his work.

In spite of these difficulties, the tournament went as usual. He hit great long shots down the fairway, but his putting was mediocre. By the last hole he was still one stroke behind the leader. If it took him two or three putts to finish, he'd end up in second or third place again. The ball was fifty feet from the hole and he had to sink it in one glorious shot.

Suddenly, as he took aim, all of the coach's admonishments congealed. He found himself concentrating, but not controlling, completely at ease, but not complacent. He felt the putter move forward, but couldn't say exactly who was putting. He watched the ball rolling toward the opening in the green, but couldn't take credit for its movement. He watched the whole thing as though he were both outside and inside the game.

The audience began cheering wildly as it became evident this was going to be a close call. Right as the ball was about to go in the hole, both the ball and the hole disappeared, leaving a flat green. The audience hushed. Only the wind could be heard on the fairway.

A Night On The Town

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There was a young monk who took our Master's words very seriously when he said, "Live as you like, but remember, Linji told us not to follow fixed patterns or permanent doctrines."

The monk felt this proclamation gave him the right to drink, smoke and womanize at will. And every Saturday he would wander off to the nearest sake bar and begin flirting with the women and becoming completely intoxicated, the whole time slurring and muttering, "No fixed patterns. No permanent doctrines."

One Saturday night the Master burst into the sake bar shouting. He pulled out a stick and began beating the monk who ran about the bar trying to avoid the blows. "Why are you punishing me?" shouted the monk as he evaded several loud slammings of the stick. "I'm not following fixed patterns or permanent doctrines."

"You come here every Saturday night," replied the Mater. "That's a fixed pattern. You are attached to the teaching of no permanent doctrines and have turned it into a permanent doctrine. Now get back to the Zendo before I beat you senseless!"

The monk quickly gathered his belongings and scampered back to the monastery. The Master then took a seat at the bar stool, winked at the charming, young waitress and said, "Now pour me some sake."

The waitress asked, "What kind of sake would you like?"

Sensei replied, "The usual."

No One In There

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A visitor rang the bell at the front gate. The Master came out and asked him what he wanted. The man indicated that he wanted to tour the monastery.

"Why do you want to wear out your shoes wandering around a bunch of old buildings?" asked the Master.

The visitor replied, "I'd like to see how authentic Zen monks live."

"But there's no one in there," replied the Master.

"Very well," said the visitor, "then I'd like to see the facilities, even if they are empty."

"As you wish," sighed the master.

The visitor was then guided through the main foyer where two monks were scrubbing the floor. Then he was led into the kitchen where several monks were cooking. They also visited the administrative offices and chatted with three clerical workers. Finally they ended up in the Zendo and watched all of the novices sitting Za Zen from morning till night. The Master then escorted the visitor back to the front gate.

As he was leaving the visitor said, "Sensei, we met dozens of people around this monastery. Why did you say there was no one in there?"

"Because there's no one in there," repeated the Master.

The visitor decided to move on to another question. "Sensei, I'm told that your novices are not allowed to leave the monastery grounds for a year. Is that true?"

"Yes," replied the Master.

"Then what do you say to them when they want to spend a day or two in the city to see their friends and family?" the visitor asked?

The Master said, "I tell them there's no one out there."

Tranquility

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A Zen student came to the Master and said, "After all these years of practice, I find my mind is still restless. I have persistent insomnia and can't concentrate on my work."

The Master replied, "The brain is, by its very nature, restless. Sleep is like a phantom and comes when it will. The duties of the world are endlessly complex and seductive. Even the best minds become utterly lost in the maze of the householder's life. I cannot recommend any changes in your practice that would solve this."

The student returned a month later. "I'm reading accounts of people attaining Nirvana. They are said to reach a state beyond the realm of human thought. The Clear Light of the Void embraces them and they transcend impermanence. Master, you have never instructed us on exactly how we are to achieve this."

The Master replied, "Nirvana is exactly one substance with the very mind you now have. The World of Delusion and the World of Enlightenment are one in the same. Why would I teach you to attain some other world than this?"

Another month passed. The student returned in a huff and said bluntly, "I've done as you said. I've abandoned my quest for enlightenment. All I ask of Zen is some tranquility."

The Master rose from his cushion, approached the highest part of the altar and found the most revered icon of the Buddha. He walked across the room and tossed the statue through a large window. Shards of glass flew everywhere. The Buddha landed on the concrete outside and the head broke off, rolling to the bottom of the koi pond where it remains to this day. Workers and monks rushed out to the hall.

The Master remained standing and thundered, "I have shown you the tranquility of Zen and how to attain it!"

The Zen student beat a hasty retreat to the alley below. The Master ran after him with a stick. Stopping at the temple gates, the Master shouted, "Next time I'll toss you out the window! Then you'll have your tranquility!"

An Angry Monk And A Small Mouse

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A hermit had managed through years of effort to cut all his ties to the world. He worked a menial job during the day, but never invited his coworkers into his home. When his few duties were complete, he rushed home, bolted his door shut, unplugged the phone from the wall and sat Za Zen every night.

One night, as he sat in meditation, frowning, unable to quell the storms of the mind, a small mouse hopped by his altar. Unwilling to allow such uncleanliness in his house, he quickly rose up and grabbed a broom, attempting to squash the vermin before it could escape, but the rodent eluded him.

Figuring the mouse had been frightened off, he spent the next evening lighting candles, burning incense and chanting sutras. To his surprise, the mouse popped out from under his clothes rack and ambled into the kitchen. Now the hermit was fuming and ran after the intruder with a dictionary, intending to crush it on the spot, but again it just managed to slip away.

On the third night, the hermit again sat Za Zen and tried zealously to cleanse his mind of any impurities or clinging thoughts, but his efforts were in vain. All of the fears and obsessions that had plagued him as a child were still polluting his mind. He was about to give up meditation for the evening when the mouse hopped onto his lap, stood on its hind legs and squeaked. At once the hermit was enlightened.

Marriage

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A Zen monk went to the doctor. The doctor said to him, "Son, you are getting on in years. What shall you do about the matter of marriage?"

The monk replied, "I shall do whatever you recommend."

"My findings," the doctor said, "are that men without wives die young because of loneliness. On the other hand, I've noticed that men with wives die young due to the pressures of maintaining a household."

"Very well then," responded the monk. "I shall neither be single nor married."

"How is that possible?" asked the doctor.

"Only dead men can do it," replied the monk.

"Are you then planning to kill yourself?" inquired the doctor.

"I did that long ago," said the monk.

Beauty

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Four Buddhist men were walking down the street when a beautiful, young woman passed by wearing high heels, a tube top and tight shorts. The men began to discuss their feelings about the woman among themselves.

The first man was a Theravada Buddhist who said, "I did not get a good look at the woman you were talking about, because I always turn my head away when such women walk by. In this way, I avoid worldly temptations."

The second man was a Tibetan Buddhist. He replied, "I will simply have to see my Master. He will perform an empowerment ceremony which will enable me to face such temptations without feeling a trace of lust."

The third one was a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist who thoughtfully said, "I shall never conquer such delusions in this lifetime. I am simply too weak and my mind is constantly in the thrall of evil thoughts. I shall chant the name of Amida Buddha and hope he will grant me a home in the Pure Land."

The fourth man, a Zen Buddhist, looked around bashfully and said, "Are you all saying I should stop dating her?"

You're The Boss

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The Dreaded Fujikami said, "Everywhere you go, you make sure you're the boss!"

A Yoga Instructor who was visiting the temple replied, "That's not a very balanced view of life. Don't you think it's a little one-sided?"

"No!" replied the The Dreaded Fujikami as he suddenly tackled the Yoga Instructor to the ground.

The Yoga Instructor was a far better wrestler and easily threw the The Dreaded Fujikami off of him and pinned him to the floor of the Zendo. The Dreaded Fujikami looked up at the Yoga Instructor and asked, "Why are you defending yourself in such an aggressive way?"

The Yoga Instructor replied, "I never allow anyone to abuse me, not even a so-called Zen Master!"

"Do you see?" The Dreaded Fujikami called out to his students from the floor of the Zendo. "Everywhere he goes, he's the boss!"

The Philosopher

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A Philosopher asked Sensei, "Can a mass murderer have Zen?"

Sensei answered, "If a mass murderer can't have Zen, then Zen can't exist in the Universe."

The Philosopher also asked Sensei, "Can an insane man become a Buddha?"

Sensei answered, "An insane man can't even prevent himself from becoming a Buddha."

"Sensei," the Philosopher continued, "What shall we do about terrorism?"

Sensei replied, "Burn your house down before they get to it."

The Philosopher wondered, "Are there really demons and ghosts in the world?"

"If so," replied Sensei, "they're too cowardly to confront me."

"How shall we deal with the problem of the origin of evil in the universe?" the Philosopher inquired.

"Are you evil?" asked Sensei.

"I don't think so," responded the Philosopher.

"Then don't deal with it," Sensei said.

"Your students say you will not allow even one fixed position," commented the Philosopher.

Sensei replied, "I shall beat them for that."

The Philosopher asked, "Have your students misrepresented you?"

"No," scowled Sensei, "but I shall beat them anyway."

Definitions

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On Saturday we would open up the temple to visitors and seekers. The Master used these times to train his senior monks in the art of Zen dialogue. Since the Master was concerned with improving the skills of these monks, he would refrain from answering questions until the senior monks had answered first.

A young woman had been sent to our Saturday open-house by her Junior College professor as part of a World Religions class. She had read about the Master in a recent interview he'd given for a Buddhist magazine.

"During your last interview you mentioned that Emptiness had been a big part of your Buddhist experience. I seem to be unclear about what this Emptiness is."

The Master nodded to the senior monks.

The first monk replied, "There's no good word for Emptiness in English. Basically the Buddhist concept of Emptiness isn't just a blank nothingness. It's more like a thing that's full and beautiful, but it is not tied to anything we can describe."

The visitor looked confused. The Master nodded to the second monk.

"What our Master was trying to say is that our judgments, the images we have in our minds, all the things we cling to, are the very things that crowd out the experience of Nirvana. Enlightenment can only be experienced when we let go and achieve a state of no-thingness."

The visitor looked sideways at the Master and said, "But what do you say it is?"

The Master replied, "When I spoke of experiencing Emptiness, I really meant I felt empty."

Nameless Essence Meets Ten Thousand Things

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Nameless Essence and Ten Thousand Things met on a country road leading through an open plain. Upon their meeting, Ten Thousand Things issued an effusive greeting. Nameless Essence gave a slight nod to indicate he'd heard the greeting, but said nothing.

Ten Thousand Things led Nameless Essence to a wooded area where he had pitched a tent. They both sat on a log near a small campfire and drank tea. Ten Thousand Things turned to Nameless Essence and said, "With your permission, I would like to say the names of each thing in the Universe." Nameless Essence nodded almost imperceptibly.

For three days and nights Nameless Essence sat motionless, without expression, as each phenomenon in the Cosmos was listed. Ten Thousand Things paced back and forth, screaming some items, whispering others, crying as he mentioned some, laughing hysterically as he recounted others.

After the third night, just as dawn was breaking, Ten Thousand Things bowed dramatically to indicate the list was finished. Nameless Essence stood up, gave an infinitesimal nod to indicate he'd heard the presentation, and turned away to continue his journey across the open plain.

Because of their meeting, the Three Worlds attained perfect balance. Ten Thousand Things and Nameless Essence have never once disagreed about anything.

Part II

The God Box

The undifferentiated whole cannot be split apart.

I give you two cents.

— Linji

The Silent Buddha

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One Zen bishop reprimanded a priest in front of several monks and parishioners. "Your teaching is too noisy. All you do is chatter about the Dharma all day long. This cheapens our practice. The real Buddha is silent."

"Really?" smirked the priest. "And have you been personally visited by this Silent Buddha?"

"Of course not," replied the bishop.

"Can you direct me to any other person who claims to have been in contact with the Silent Buddha?" asked the priest.

"I don't think so," answered the bishop.

"Well then," concluded the priest, "until you can find the Silent Buddha, I'll stick with the noisy one.

Eternal Life

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One Zen monk approached another in the town square and said, "I saw you walking into the heathen temple yesterday. I couldn't believe that a Buddhist of your standing would resort to polytheism, so I sneaked in behind you. At first I couldn't find you in the chaotic crowd. One could hardly see through all the incense smoke, the haze from offering fires and the steam from simmering vats of food. The din of four or five different ceremonies going on at once, and children rushing about everywhere, overwhelmed me. Then I spotted you bowing in front of a frightening-looking shrine, but when the priest brought you the sacred food offerings you refused them. Why?"

The second monk looked away and blandly said, "I am very picky about food, and I knew it would taste badly."

"But weren't they offended?" inquired the first monk.

"Yes," the second monk replied definitively. "One old heathen priest told me I would got to Hell forever for not accepting the offering."

The first monk scratched his head and asked, "Why would you invite upon yourself the curse of perpetual torment?"

The second monk smiled. "It was the only way I could get eternal life?"

Holy Man

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I used to go see this Zen teacher who had gotten rather popular in our district. I quickly concluded he was crazy because he would say at the beginning of each meeting, "Ladies and Gentlemen, before we begin our talk today, I would like you to know that I am The Living Reincarnation of Buddha himself. Are there any further questions?" And, to add to his offenses, he had commissioned a lotus throne to be constructed. At various points in the meeting he would stop speaking, take a seat on the throne, pick up a trident and emit a beaming, self-satisfied grin.

For a while the room would be silent, then people would begin approaching him with questions about their lives. They brought the usual bags full of concerns: troubled marriages, loneliness, financial ruin, rebellious children, obstinate parents, all the typical cravings of the world. As far as I could tell, his answers to these complicated dilemmas were high-handed, lacking in compassion, completely uninformative and utterly unoriginal. Why people sought his guidance was a mystery to me. Frankly, I came back every week, not to hear his answers, but to watch these trash-TV supplicants and listen to their petty soap operas. In those days my meditation habits were good, but I'd grown a bit jaded, and the sight of these fawning people amused me.

As for myself, I'd never asked him a single question. I felt that he was the same as any cult leader who made extravagant claims and found people gullible enough to believe him.

Some months later, not knowing what I would say, I finally stood up and proclaimed, "You cannot be The Living Reincarnation of Buddha because I am The True Reincarnation of The Buddha."

Now this particular teacher, who usually wore a rather pompous and serious look, as though he were administering some sort of stern discipline, gazed out at me with a generous smile. "You are brave young man to try to take my seat at The Lotus Throne. I'm glad to see someone here with grit. That's important in Zen. But you cannot have my seat at the Lotus Throne because you are not yet a Buddha and I shall prove it to you."

He never explained what his proof would be. The meeting continued with a general round of complaints and questions from completely enmeshed people who could not see further than their own noses. To add to this insulting situation, he concluded the meeting by again sitting on his lotus throne and flashing his bright teeth to the audience. He made a special point of glancing over at me with the most smug smirk I have ever witnessed. "What a fraud," I thought.

The next week was entirely uneventful. I'd been meditating every day and had become very gratified by my consistency and sense of equanimity. I had begun to think it was time to stop going to the Lotus Throne Temple and losing myself in such a tawdry diversion.

It was the day before the next scheduled meeting. I decided to walk downtown to get some money out of the bank. Our town was generally safe, but one rather seedy block lay between my house and the bank. It contained the usual assortment of heroin hotels, brothels, sad dive bars and ruined people milling about begging for quarters. In spite of this, there was rarely any violent crime, so I walked through this street on the way downtown for the variety it offered our otherwise boring, suburban neighborhood.

It just so happened, as I was walking past a particular massage parlor, I saw The Living Reincarnation of Buddha walk right into this house of ill repute, and he did so in broad daylight with an expression on his face that said, "This is the most natural thing in the world."

Finally I had the evidence I needed to prove this man was a total hoax. Far from being a paragon of enlightenment, it turned out he was a simple pervert lost in the lowliest of vices. I chuckled to myself all the way home.

The next day I did go to the meeting, indeed. And as The Living Reincarnation of Buddha sat on that lotus throne, at the very moment his chest seemed to swell with exuberant pride, I took the opportunity to stand up and say, "Hey, Mr. Living Reincarnation of Buddha, I saw you walking into a whorehouse yesterday afternoon. You're no Buddha at all. I just thought all your brainwashed little cultists here should know that."

The room was silent. The audience was sickened but spellbound by the drama unfolding before them. It seemed an eternity of silence. This whole time The Living Reincarnation of Buddha stared at me with the most loving and reprimanding look that I've ever seen. Finally, he said, "Son, my Lotus Throne is there for the taking. Perhaps indeed you are The True Reincarnation of Buddha and not I. But before I cede my seat to you, you must meet my lover."

Suddenly a lovely brown-haired lady in her mid-thirties stood up. She was somewhat thin and of medium height. Her face was very plain and a bit worn-looking. She said nothing, but gazed at me in the sweetest, most gentle way imaginable.

"She," said The Living Reincarnation of Buddha, sweeping his arm widely in her direction, "has been a prostitute at that very massage parlor you speak of for a number of years now. I say she is the very Embodiment of Kannon Bodhisattva, The Great Teacher of Compassion. There is nothing dishonorable about my love for her, unless anyone here is prepared to prove otherwise. But nonetheless, I will turn this ministry over to you. All I ask is, if you believe my lover is not a Bodhisattva, that you tell her face-to-face why she is not. If she is not, you must tell us all, in your vast clarity, how she may better follow the path to enlightenment."

As I faced the prostitute, her sweet gaze transformed into a noble and stern one. Her eyes grew wider and her face seemed to shine brightly under the fluorescent lights. Hushed murmurs and sighs were heard from the crowd. I quickly sat down and buried my head in my hands and said nothing more till the meeting was over. As always, The Living Reincarnation of Buddha took his seat on The Lotus Throne and beamed a wide grin out to his admirers.

After the meeting, The Living Reincarnation of Buddha and his prostitute girlfriend came up to me, trailed by a few acolytes. "Hey listen, Mr. True Reincarnation of The Buddha," he said to me with a chuckle, "I suppose you've taken some strict vow to never consume alcohol. That would be your style. But if you could see your way clear to join us sinners for a drink over at one of those nice dive bars near the massage parlor, we'd be honored to have you. It's not every day I find someone with the courage to try to knock me off my throne. That counts for something. My girlfriend, by the way, thinks you need a massage and she's willing to offer you a substantial discount."

Wash Sheets / Fold Towels

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The layman adept See-Though made his reputation going around the world debunking legendary Zen Masters. He was told by a friend that there was a great Zen sage working in the laundry room of a hotel in a Mexican resort who was known as No-Outward-Signs. Whenever this man was asked by seekers from far and wide what he had done to attain Enlightenment, the sage would reply, "Wash sheets / fold towels."

Upon hearing this account, See-Through replied, "Hmph, I've heard that story a thousand times. I shall go there and see if he has anything else to say."

See-Through immediately booked a flight to Mexico and went to the resort. Upon arriving, he asked the concierge where the laundry room was. "Oh yes," remarked the concierge, "they come from all over to see him. You take the elevator to the basement, and when you get to the counter, ring the bell."

When See-Through got to the laundry room service counter he rang the bell loudly several times. It annoyed him to wait even one minute to see the alleged sage. For several minutes all that could be seen or heard was the churning of washing machines and the spinning of dryers. No-Outward-Signs finally ambled out from some nook where he'd been working. He tottered slowly to the counter, plopped himself down on a stool, let out a big sigh and said, "We work all our lives like slaves and die like dogs. Where's the payoff?"

"Do you know I've been stuck at this counter for several minutes? What kind of customer service is this!"

"Please accept my apologies, I'm a little hard of hearing and the washing machines sometimes drown out the sound of the bell."

"No matter. I'm here on important business. Are you the one they call the Great Sage?"

"You said that, not me."

"Nice try. Everyone from Jesus to Ramakrishna has already played the false-humility game better than you ever will. To what do you attribute your so-called Enlightenment?"

"How would I know? I only wash sheets and fold towels."

"Right, the old 'chop-wood / carry-water' ploy. I knew there was nothing new to your act. I'm rather annoyed that I bothered to take a plane a quarter way around the world for this."

No-Outward-Signs began to smile. "Ah, now I see. You must be the great See-Through, the one known for traversing the planet debunking Zen Masters. Hasn't anyone told you the debunker's game dates back a thousand years before Linji?"

"Okay," replied See-Through, "neither of us is original. So where do we go from here?"

No-Outward-Signs took on a look of severe determination and said with a scowl, "Wash sheets / fold towels."

See-Through turned to leave. Stopping at the threshold, he looked back and said, "Take care."

"I will," replied No-Outward-Signs.

As See-Through turned again to leave, No-Outward-Signs said, "See-Through, don't be so hard on yourself."

Why Not Today?

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Every day a Zen monk would go to the market to buy fresh vegetables. And every day a Zen nun would come to the same market to buy fresh flowers. One day, after they had both made their purchases, the Zen nun approached the monk.

"Is it still true," she inquired mockingly, "that you are madly in love with me?"

"That's none of your business," he replied.

"Why don't you give up your delusions of romance?" she said with a sneer.

"I would rather cut off both my legs," he said sternly.

"Okay, Mr. Big Zen Master," she responded, "if you're so passionate, why don't you make love to me?"

"Perhaps someday I will," he said plainly.

"Why not today?" she said with a teasing smile.

"Why not some other day?" he replied with a grin as he started to hurry back to the temple.

She watched him go about a quarter mile down the road. Then she shouted with a laugh, "Hey, Mr. Satori, you're just a good-for-nothing old fart!"

The monk did not turn around, but broke into a jog. His heart was filled with bliss. The cherry trees were in full bloom.

The God Box

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Sensei was sweeping the Zendo quietly while the other monks were out on their day off. Suddenly, a private detective burst into room. He stared at the Master with a steely gaze and the Master stared down at his feet, blushing slightly.

"I can't believe it," said the private detective. "It's been right under my nose the whole time, in downtown Los Angeles of all places!"

"How did you know?" asked the Master.

"It was a process of elimination," replied the private detective. "If It were in India, Israel or anywhere in the Third World, then everyone would be blathering on about it. I knew It had to be in Australia, North America or Western Europe. After traipsing around London, Paris and Sydney for awhile, I could sense the trail was cold. When I got to the U.S., I knew It was probably staying on either the East or West Coast. After a few months in the Northeast I could tell It wasn't going to turn up there. When I got to the West Coast, people started becoming evasive with me for no reason. At first I thought It might be in San Francisco, but they were bluffing a bit, although I could tell they knew something. By the time I got down here, I systematically saw every Buddhist Priest in the phone book. I knew that once I got a look at their faces, I'd be able to tell the guilty one right away."

"It's that obvious?" said the Master.

"Your face reads like a book, Sir," the private detective replied.

"Then you know the whole story?" asked the Master.

"Right, the whole thing: how the Vedic Priests passed It down from generation to generation until It fell into King Ashoka's hands; how he passed It down from Patriarch to Patriarch before It inexplicably disappeared. I figured a Zen Buddhist would have the most interest in hiding It. That's just like you folks," concluded the private detective.

"What makes you say that?" wondered the Master.

"We all know how Zen-types hate metaphysics. The last thing you need is some Absolute Truth floating around," said the private detective.

"What now?" the Master inquired.

"Show me where it is," said the private detective.

The Master flushed again. "It asked to be kept in the cupboard with the frying pans."

"Why would It ask to be treated so disrespectfully?" asked the private detective.

"It said It didn't want to be any trouble. It insisted that I not fuss over It," said the Master as they walked to the kitchen to retrieve the box.

"That's It?" demanded the private detective. "Why that's no bigger than a shoe box."

"It said It didn't require much room to do what It does," recounted the Master as he opened the lid of the small wooden container.

"So that's the one they call 'Brahman,' the great 'I Am,' 'the Divine Mother,' 'The Universe?'" pondered the private detective as he waved his hand inside the glowing object.

"Can you feel it?" asked the Master.

"Oh yes, once you touch It there's no doubt It's the Ocean of Being and Non-Being," assured the private detective. "But what do I do now that I've found It."

The Master said, "The few times It conveyed any messages, It said that I should just carry on with my normal life. It didn't have any commandments or rules, almost no instructions whatsoever. Everyone from King Ashoka on down figured if we started showing It to too many people, they'd try to live some other sort of life or look forward to a future world, or worse yet, start horrible dogmatic teachings that no one could escape from for thousands of years."

"How does it feel to be in the presence of It every day?" asked the private detective.

"After a while you just forget all about It and try to get back to work. We still have to clean this place and cook meals and do our regular fund raising. Nothing has changed much. Only a few of the senior monks know. Every now and then word slips out and some novice hears about It. Frankly, just like with you, when cornered, we just show him the box until he tires of It and gets back to whatever his assignments were. After all, there's nothing about what It does that seems to free us from our duties. It's the same old laundry, dishes and yard full of leaves," asserted the Master.

"What if I miss It when I go?" the private detective asked.

"No problem," the Master replied. "Come and see It whenever you like. That's part of the reason we're able to keep a lid on the publicity. People see It two or three times and they're bored with It. Sometimes I tease a few of these monks and say, 'So, fellows, here we have God-In-A-Box and you're over there arguing about whose turn it is to take out the trash.'"

The Begging Bowl

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A wandering Zen student is seated on a sidewalk in the Financial District. He is leaning against the wall of a building as the security guard gives him the evil eye. He is chanting sutras from a booklet and his begging bowl is set on the sidewalk. A businessman stops and questions him.

"Are you expecting me to give you money?"

"Only if you were hoping for an opportunity to give me money."

"Well, you've got a lot of nerve. Let me ask you this: Who ordained you?"

"No respectable monastery would even consider ordaining me. I don't have the discipline to wake up at four in the morning every day."

"How do I know you're not a con man out here freeloading off of hard working folks? Maybe you're just petty thief."

"I don't deny being thief."

"So then you're no different than all the drug addicts, alcoholics and welfare frauds out here looking for their next fix."

"I never claimed to be different."

"Are you too sick to work?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"What illness do you have?"

"Sir, I have the same illness you do, only worse."

"Very funny. Do you have some kind of mental problem?"

"Yes, certainly the illness started in the mind."

"Are you in some kind of pain now?"

"The pain comes and goes."

"Is it severe?"

"Often."

"You're nothing but a spiritual con man?" says the businessman.

The student reaches down into the bowl, pulls a dollar out and gives it to the businessman. "Sir," he says, "with all the money you have, and in spite of my poverty, I think you need this more than I do."

At that moment the pedestrian was enlightened.

The Courage Of The Stoics

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A Philosophy student was having his weekly chat with the Master.

"How were your Philosophy studies this week," inquired the Master.

"Not bad," the student replied, "although I got into an argument with a Stoic."

"Which doctrines did he espouse?" the Master asked.

"He claimed," continued the student, "that the Stoics were superior to the Buddhists on the grounds that they were braver. Specifically, he related stories of the Stoics' unflinching willingness to face death."

"How did you respond to this challenge?" asked the Master.

"I assured him," concluded the student, "that my Master hadn't an ounce of cowardice in him and wouldn't hesitate to give up his worldly body when the time came to do so."

"It's unfortunate to hear you took that position," the Master added.

"Why is that, Sensei?" the student said disconcertedly.

"Because," the Master admitted, "the last time we had an intruder, my wife beat him away with a walking stick while I hid in the bathroom."

A Hopeful Renunciant

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A monk met the Master in his office. "I have learned to live without money."

"You're getting closer," replied the Master.

"A month later the monk met the Master in the garden. "I have learned to live without sex."

"You're getting closer," replied the Master.

A month later the monk met the Master in the Zendo. "At last I am ready to renounce the world entirely"

The Master replied, "You just missed the mark."

A Lifetime Of Emptiness

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I took no small glee at the fact that my old Zen master, well known for browbeating his students into years of celibacy, had himself fallen deeply in love with a woman thirty years younger than he. As I locked my door and turned to walk to my car, I was almost giddy. "Have no fixations! Do not cling! Embrace impermanence!" "What a bunch of rubbish. That old parasite really put one over on us," I proclaimed to myself.

Pretending not to know of his love-sickness, I'd called and arranged for "counseling" on the pretext that my job had become stressful. He accepted my request for a meeting without detecting my motives. This surprised me because any student who attempted to hide anything from him was always found out and summarily humiliated before the entire group.

I drove over to the Zen Center and met my old nemesis over some tea and cookies. I presented my made-up problem about work and was further puzzled when, instead of offering penetrating insight, he rattled off some stock phrases, stared blankly at the ceiling and left that matter at that.

"Sensei," I said, "forgive me for saying so, but you seem unusually distracted today. Is something wrong?"

"Little Bhiku," he said sentimentally, "I've fallen head over heels for a younger woman."

Pretending to be shocked, I replied, "Sensei! Wasn't it you who told us over and over never to yield an inch to such delusions?"

"I said that?"

"Yes, you did, and we all struggled with it terribly."

"Fascinating."

"Have you consummated this relationship?"

"Good heavens, no! She's a married woman. It's all in my own head. Besides, she lives several counties away. We hardly talk anymore."

"Have your feelings deepened?"

"My love for her grows stronger and more painful as time passes."

"Aren't you just setting yourself up for a lifetime of emptiness?"

The Master looked around the room and replied, "If you're not willing to endure a lifetime of emptiness for your muse, it's probably a halfhearted love at best."

Interview With A Layman

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A layman confided in the Master. "I'm thinking of joining the monastery."

"You're looking for trouble," responded the Master.

"Then I'd like to become a writer and lecturer," continued the layman.

"You'd be putting yourself in great danger," warned the Master.

"After that I'd like to retire and devote myself to quiet contemplation of the Dharma," concluded the layman.

The Master grimaced and said, "That would surely be the death of you."

A Convocation Of Bodhisattvas

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The President of our congregation rose to speak during an administrative meeting at the temple. "Sensei, I couldn't help but notice Christian missionaries distributing tracts around our village all week long. The week before that it was Muslims seeking to make converts. How is it that we have lost our evangelical zeal?"

Sensei's face became wistful. "Many kalpas ago all the Bodhisattvas took a vow to save all beings. They were even determined to save rocks and blades of grass. So Kannon Bodhisattva convened a meeting on Mount Sumeru to discuss how to best convey the message of Buddhism to all realms of existence. But just as the meeting was about to end, an unknown Bodhisattva asked for permission to speak. Kannon nodded in approval."

"'My fellow saviors, before we proceed too quickly, I feel it is my duty to remind you that if all beings are enlightened at once, the Wheel of Karma will stop turning and the Ocean of Birth and Death will dry up. This would cause the Extinction of the Three Worlds.'"

"'Good point,' replied Kannon Bodhisattva. 'We should go about our task of saving all beings at a leisurely pace. True, we may have vowed to produce Universal Enlightenment, but we can take comfort in the fact that we never promised to do it quickly.'"

Part III

Saved By A Moth

Check it out.

It's like a scene in a puppet show.

— Wumen

A Mediocre Student

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The Master was approached by a student well-known to have a mediocre practice.

"Sensei, everyone says my practice is mediocre."

"That's not news to me," replied the Master.

"But I secretly believe I'm a Buddha," protested the student.

"I secretly believe you're a Buddha too," whispered the Master.

"But you always say, 'Suzuki has told us to have Beginner's Mind'. How can I have Beginner's Mind when I think I'm already Enlightened?"

"Because," exclaimed the Master, "The whole universe was created just now."

After A Lifetime Of Practice

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One monk turned to the other and said, "I think I'm going to leave the monastery."

"Why is that?" asked the second monk.

"After a lifetime of practice, I find I'm no different than any ordinary sinner."

"Great!" replied the second monk. "You have attained the clear-mind-state of the Ancient Teachers?"

"But what's so great about being just like an ordinary sinner?"

"Ordinary sinners don't know how good they have it."

Ten Avatars

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There were Ten Avatars in our province who were worshiped as Living Incarnations of God. In the outskirts of a large city, there was a small congregation that was so poor they couldn't afford any portraits of them.

One day a wealthy man passing through the district decided to visit the makeshift temple and speak to the Priest.

"Sir," the wealthy man said, "what is the True Path to the Abode of the Divine Mother?"

"Brother," replied the Priest, "you'll have to donate a portrait of an Avatar and return next week. Perhaps then I shall tell you."

The wealthy man happily purchased a portrait of an Avatar for the temple and returned the following week.

"Sir," he repeated, "what is the Truth Path to the Abode of the Divine Mother?"

"I can't tell you yet," the Priest declared. "You must buy one more portrait of an Avatar and return next week."

Sincerely hoping to resolve the matter, the wealthy man returned for ten consecutive weeks, each time buying the temple another portrait of an Avatar. On the tenth week the wealthy man returned to the temple expecting an answer. Since the temple now had portraits of all Ten Avatars, the Priest would have no more excuses.

"Sir," he said for the last time, 'now tell me, what is the True Path to the Abode of the Divine Mother?"

The Priest turned to the altar and said, "Do you see the icons of the Ten Living Incarnations of God you have purchased?"

"Yes," said the wealthy man.

"If any of these fellows," the Priest proclaimed, "tries to tell you he knows the True Path to the Abode of the Divine Mother, don't you believe a word of it!"

Criminal Justice

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A layman confronted the Master. "It's rumored you don't believe in the afterlife."

The Master replied, "Since there is no birth and no death, nothing can be after them or before them."

The layman countered, "Then a murderer who is never apprehended by the authorities will escape justice?"

"That's none of your business," said the Master.

"But I want to see justice being done," demanded the layman.

"Then act justly and you will see justice being done right then and there," the Master replied.

"But how are we to respond when we see injustice being done to others?" inquired the layman.

The Master said, "Perform an injustice right now and I'll show you."

Sartorial Concerns

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He was kicked out of the monastery for a failure to make spiritual progress. It seemed that he had been able to give up all bodily concerns except one. He was hopelessly preoccupied by the appearance of his robes. Time after time the Abbot would have to discipline him for showing up late to meals and missing meditation sessions on account of his appearance. The young monk had to have a brand new robe in spotless condition at all times. If a rip or a tear should appear on his garment, he would abandon the monastery and spend hours pestering the tailor to make sure each stitch was perfect.

After leaving the monastery he maintained his Buddhist studies and his hankering for perfect clothes. He'd amassed two closets full of the finest clothing he could lay his hands on. This way of living sat well with him until one day moths began to invade his small apartment.

Having taken the precept of non-killing, he left the insects alone at first, until they started eating away at his hard-earned wardrobe. The moths were beginning to cost him real money, so he took to squashing them ruthlessly. And each time he rubbed out the life of a moth he'd say, "I know I'm going to hell for this, but I'm not letting you destroy a decade of work."

One evening, during a candle-lit meditation session, a moth flew right by his nose. Infuriated, he rose from his cushion and grabbed his trusty fly-swatter. He chased the bug around the room for several minutes, but the moth was brilliant in flight, expertly evading every swat. The chase went on for some time, but the insect began to tire and the former monk was closing in, so the moth took refuge on the face of Quan Yin. The monk was about to smear the body of his prey right on the cheek of the statue when he caught himself.

"Well done, my little friend," he said. "You know I can't crush you on the statue of a Bodhisattva. But you'd better be gone by tomorrow morning or I'll kill you for sure." The former monk then sat down and finished his meditation. He blew out the candles and went to bed. But while he slept, the moth grew to the size of a raven and proceeded to eat his entire wardrobe. When he awoke, most of his clothing was gone. Only threads and scraps remained. The moth, having returned to its normal size, flew by his nose again and fluttered out a crack in the bedroom window.

A flash of realization came over the monk and he flew from his bedroom like a madman. He wandered the streets of his town half-naked. In a daze, he tromped up and down the main avenue chanting sutras to himself. When people called out to him he would only reply, "Saved by a moth. Saved by a moth."

After several hours the authorities were called in. "Sir," a magistrate said politely, "you seem to have lost your clothing. What is the meaning of this?"

Again the reply, "Saved by a moth. Saved by a moth."

Realizing he was dealing with a madman, the magistrate humored him by saying, "Then let us help you get some clothing. What is it that you would like to wear?"

The former monk stopped in his tracks and said dismissively, "Any old rags will do."

A Lesson In Logic

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A Logic Professor paid the Master a visit recently: "Sensei, you should know that all your Zen double-speak violates every rule of Formal Logic. One day you say something is true. The next day you say it's false. The next day you claim it's neither true nor false."

The Master asked humbly, "Could you give us one simple lesson in Logic today?"

"Certainly," obliged the Professor. "The first thing you should know is that your contradictory statements don't make any sense. You need to discipline your mind to produce consistent statements. In Logic we have what's called the 'Principle of Contradiction' which says that a proposition cannot be simultaneously true and false."

"Can you give us an example of the 'Principle of Contradiction,'" inquired the Master.

"Absolutely," responded the Professor. "For example, one could not simultaneously say, 'It is true that I went shopping today and it is false that I went shopping today.' You must choose one proposition or the other. You cannot assert them both without violating the rules of Logic."

That Master turned to his students and said, "Clearly this man has not met my wife."

On The Legitimacy Of Zen

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A Chairman of the Philosophy Department paid our Master a visit one day to investigate the merits of Zen Practice. "Of what use is Zen to a person who is psychologically troubled?"

The master, sipping his tea, thought for a moment. He put the cup down and said, "Zen is not a mental condition, therefore it can't alter the vast machinery of the mind."

"A lot of students," said the Professor, "are turning to Eastern Religion to deal with their medical problems. Some have taken up yoga, others Tai Chi, and some, various forms of meditation. What can Zen Buddhism offer to those seeking to improve their health?"

The master stared ahead silently, as though distracted by something. After a moment he bowed his head slightly and poured the Professor another cup of tea. He set the tea pot down and said resolutely, "Zen is not a physical condition, therefore it can provide no warranty against physical suffering, physical decline or death."

The Professor sipped his tea as he stared around the Master's room. But the Master's quarters were so sparsely decorated that the Philosophy Instructor could find nothing to comment on in order to alleviate the awkwardness of these two responses. "Forgive my crudeness. Here I've been focusing on mundane matters before a highly respected Priest. So please tell me, Master, what spiritual progress have your monks reported?"

The Master wrung his hands for a moment and turned his head away. His face turned slightly red and he again faced the Professor and replied, "I have read the entire works of all the Patriarchs since this order was founded, and I regret to inform you that not one of them reported progress in the spiritual realm."

The Professor crossed his arms, pulled his head back slightly and gave the master a chiding grin. "It seems, Venerable Master, that you are quite simply unable to describe or defend your religion in any respect. I'm beginning to think this whole Zen thing is just a big hoax."

"What you say may be true," admitted the Master, "but I'd be really grateful if you didn't mention that to the Board of Directors here, since they're still paying my salary."

Conversions

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A Jodo Shinshu priest said, "I've noticed a trend in families with both Buddhist and Christian members. When the Buddhist becomes terminally ill, the Christian members all panic, fearing the Buddhist will go to Hell for belonging to the 'wrong religion.' They begin an all-out campaign of conversion, using threats and guilt in order to sway him. Finally, after weeks or months of seeing the family in an uproar, the Buddhist will usually pretend to convert out of compassion for his family members so that others may be at peace while he dies."

The Evangelical Atheist

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We had just finished our work in the temple garden and had gathered in the main hall for what our Abbot described as "a rollicking session of meat-eating and sake-drinking." We had just seated ourselves and were prepared to, as the Abbot would often say, "dig in," when suddenly the zendo door flew open and a severe looking fellow from the university entered.

"I am here to rid all of you of your superstitions and set you free to live ordinary lives."

"I can save you lots of trouble," the Abbot replied. "We already live ordinary lives."

"I have been to every temple, church, synagogue and mosque in this city, and everywhere I go I find doctrines being preached which have no basis in reality. There is only one truth, and that is the truth of Science. Hear me out. I have already converted three ministers in this town to the only real doctrine, Atheism. You are probably too cowardly to accept it. But I'm not leaving here till you renounce these phony ceremonies and these silly robes. Do you hear me?"

"Very impressive," replied the Abbot as he turned to face the congregation. "This calls for no less than a celebration. You may join us for sake and steak. We will be glad to listen to your teachings."

The visitor sat down warily. "Aren't you supposed to be vegetarians?"

"Some people have said that," noted the Abbot.

"From the amount of sake I see around me, I'd say you all drink like fish."

"Authorities from Kyoto have reprimanded us about alcohol consumption."

"Well, are you in the least bit repentant?"

"Sir, I don't even permit repentance on temple grounds."

"Let's get down to business. I know you secretly believe in gods, mystic states of enlightenment and other such hogwash."

"Very well then," said the Abbot compliantly. "In honor of our visiting teacher, I command you all to give up your secret beliefs."

The congregation nodded submissively.

"Don't try to patronize me. I can see that you harbor the delusions of religious people."

The master spoke even more authoritatively. "If you are to remain my students, you must renounce the delusions of religious people!"

"What you can't accept, dear Abbot, is that the universe is not a place of magic and fairy tales. It is a universe of scientific laws."

The master further proclaimed to his students, "You are to dispense with myths, fairly tales and all such nonsense and accept the laws of the universe."

The visitor became exasperated and said to the Abbot, "The problem with your followers is that they can't accept the world as it is. The evidence of that is the existence of this building. If you say you aren't believers in the gods, then in whose honor was this temple built?"

The Abbot thought for a long while and then replied softly, "I think it was built in honor of the same person you're crusading for."

A Superiority Complex

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An Elder approached a Buddhist Priest and said, "Why do you always talk down to us as if we were children?"

The Priest replied, "Because I view you as children."

"Do you feel superior to us because of your long years of spiritual practice?" asked the Elder.

"No," replied the Priest. "I do not feel superior due to my spiritual practices. I feel superior because I'm conceited."

"Why don't you work on purging yourself of this character flaw?" suggested the Elder.

"Because the only thing worse than a conceited person," asserted the Priest, "is someone trying to purge themselves of conceit."

"What harm can come from the sacred practice of self-denial?" the Elder asked.

"In undertaking such a practice," proclaimed the Priest, "one runs the risk of ending up a temple Elder."

Joker

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"You say that no spiritual practice is necessary. Does this mean I'm enlightened already?"

"For most people that's true. In your case I'd recommend a decade of harsh discipline."

"You say that flexibility is the key. Does that mean I can forgo all manner of study and just enjoy myself?"

"For you I would insist on daily rituals in a dogmatic cult with an authoritarian leader."

"Others have warned me that you never agree with anyone."

"I completely agree with that assessment."

"Why do you teach a different doctrine to each person who visits you?"

"The Doctor must prescribe different medicines for different diseases."

"Suppose I don't think I need any medicines because I don't believe I have any diseases?"

"That would indicate your illness is incurable."

"What do you do with an incurable person?"

"Avoid the topic of Buddhism altogether."

"What would it mean if no one talked about Buddhism?"

"It would mean the world had reached a state of perfection."

"What would happen if the world ever reached a state of perfection?"

"It would finally be allowed to die a natural death."

Leaving Tracks

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"Sensei, I attended a lecture by Zuimonki last week."

"Isn't one Zen Master enough to ruin your life completely? Why would you need two?"

"He told us to walk the Pathless Path."

"Did you mock him to his face?"

"No."

"And how did he say we should walk the Pathless Path?"

"He said we should leave no tracks."

"But I rather enjoy seeing tracks."

"He said tracks represent our desire to leave our ego-imprint on the world."

"What's wrong with a little ego-imprinting? I think it adds some spice to life."

"He claimed the purpose of the Buddhist life is to transcend the ego."

"No, the purpose of the Buddhist life is to transcend the need to transcend the ego."

A Military Man's Dilemma

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"Sensei, I think I've got to quit the Army."

"But you love being in the Army."

"I attended a J. Krishnamurti lecture last week."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"He said it was always wrong to fight, even in self-defense."

"Good, then next time I see him I'll give him a generous beating."

"Sensei! I'm serious!"

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"When I was on combat duty last month, I shot five men."

"Were they shooting at you?"

"Yes, of course!"

"That might be the reason you shot them."

"But Sensei, war is not the answer."

"Peace is not the answer either."

"Have you read the book 'Gandhi's Truth'?"

"Yes, I laughed all the way through it."

"Would you please stop being contrary for a moment and listen to me? I'm here for a very specific reason."

"I will reluctantly try to keep a straight face, since they pay me to be a Priest."

"I want your blessing before I leave the Army."

"If you can name one ruler of any Buddhist country who has no armed men protecting him, I shall give you my blessing to leave the Army."

Not One Opening

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"It's been said that in your practice there is not one opening for the ego."

"Not one."

"They say that you are the Teacher of No-Teaching. But how can you really teach not-teaching?"

"By not teaching it."

"Since you don't commit to much, I think others must learn from your very presence."

"My presence is this very thusness."

"What is that?"

"This exact suchness."

"What precisely do you mean."

"I mean precisely this."

"Is this the same realization Buddha had?"

"I don't permit discussion of Buddha here."

"Why does the sign outside say 'Buddhist temple'?"

"Because my patrons insist on it."

"Why do your patrons pay all your expenses when you have so little to offer?"

"You shall have to ask my patrons."

"Are you only putting on this charade because you can't hold a real job?"

"What sane person would even want a real job?"

"It's all well and fine for you to sit here with your smug indifference, but those of us in the world have families to feed, spouses to contend with and employers to satisfy. What do you say to those with householder's concerns?"

"I assure them that all the phenomena they concern themselves with are subject, at anytime, to the possibility of decay and dissolution. This makes it likely that all the people and things we worry about will be forcibly removed from our care."

"That's not much of a teaching at all."

"It is almost no teaching whatsoever."

"So there really is not one opening?"

"No, not even one."

A Confession Of Love

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I had fallen in love with my Teacher. This one was of rather rotund form and had the face of a bulldog. The other monks knew of my feelings and teased me to no end. I had not been in love for many years and we were all surprised at how my taste in women had changed. Determined to see this matter through, I arranged for a private meeting with our teacher.

"I'm very sorry to waste your time with the matters of a lowly monk."

"Not nearly as sorry as I am," she grunted.

"Nonetheless there are some pressing matters I must discuss with you."

"Are you going to ask me why you're spending your whole life in vain?"

"No, in fact I'd prefer to avoid that theme for now."

"Okay then, get on with it."

"You see," I said in a most poised manner, "I have been concerned that you make too-frequent use of the kyosaku stick."

"Not frequently enough, apparently."

"And secondly, I am here to make a confession of love."

"Is that it? I thought you had matters of real importance to discuss. Nevertheless, I will deal with both of your questions. Firstly, there will be no letup in the beatings you pipsqueaks receive. Secondly, I have no problem with you becoming my boyfriend. But be warned, my boyfriends receive twice as many beatings as the ordinary monks."

I leaned back in my chair and stared in disbelief. "But that cannot be conducive to a long-term relationship."

"Sure it is. Boyfriends come and go, but the pain of beatings lasts forever."

To Walk The Pathless Path

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An Elder on the Board of Directors sat with Sensei and asked, "What do the Ancient Teachers mean when they tell us to Walk the Pathless Path?"

Sensei replied, "I hate questions like that."

"Right," said the Elder, "but I'll have you fired if you don't answer."

The Master quickly reached for a stick. The Elder pulled a baton from his jacket and warded off the blow. "Your habit of replying to questions by beating the student is becoming tiresome."

"Very good," said the Master, "then I shall tell you."

"Lao Tsu," continued the Master, "was wandering through all the Universes when he stumbled into a great hall that contained what Monotheists call The Lord God On His Throne." "Lao Tsu asked, 'Sir, what is your practice?'"

"Angrily, The Lord God On His Throne replied, 'I sit in judgment of all sentient beings!'"

"'Ah,' Lao Tsu said forlornly, 'so you've not yet passed beyond right and wrong. Too bad for you.'"

"'But I,' the outraged deity countered, 'am the very creator, preserver and destroyer of all the worlds from time immemorial!'"

"'I'm sorry to hear that,' responded Lao Tsu. 'You're still lost in the Ocean of Birth and Death.'"

"Incensed, The Lord God On His Throne declared, 'I'll cast you into Hell for Eternity.'"

"But the Lord God On His Throne was unable to find Lao Tsu's body, mind or soul," noted the Master, "and hence could not cast him into Hell for Eternity."

"Lao Tsu took a final look at The Lord God On His Throne and concluded, 'Sadly, you're not an Immortal yet.'"

"Then he turned away to wander beyond time and space, not bounded by empty names. This is called Walking the Pathless Path. Are you ready to begin?"

The Perfect Prayer

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One morning a Hasidic Rabbi was approached by an Elder of the congregation who asked, "Rabbi, what is the perfect prayer?"

The Rabbi turned to his desk, opened a drawer and pulled out an index card. "I have written these up for anyone who asks."

The Elder took the card and read it:

"Dear God,

I renounce all my previous requests for health, prosperity and long life. I further renounce all such future requests made on my behalf and any such requests I might make on behalf of others."

"I see," said the Elder, "so you're saying we should only ask for spiritual salvation."

"No," replied the Rabbi, "that would be an insult to God."

"How could that be?" inquired the Elder.

"Because," the Rabbi answered, "that would imply God hadn't already saved you."

Bodhidharma

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A religious historian asked, "The great Zen missionary Bodhidharma came from India to China, but when he arrived he only said, 'Empty. Nothing holy.' What do you suppose he meant by that?"

"I don't know," frowned Sensei, "but if he ever comes around here with that crap, I'll give him a good thrashing."

The religious historian said, "Sensei, for one who is said to have a spiritual calling, you seem to exhibit no reverence for the ancient teachers of your lineage."

Sensei rose from his cushion, and, with a clenched fist, declared, "That's because I'm better than all of them put together."

"People have asked," continued the religious historian, "why Bodhidharma risked his life to come all the way from India, through the Himalayas, and into China, when he had nothing to say."

"So he could say it," replied Sensei.

The religious historian pondered, "How would it feel to be in the very presence of Bodhidharma himself?"

Sensei replied, "It would feel like being in the presence of a used-car salesman."

"Who was this Bodhidharma fellow anyway?" pondered the religious historian.

Sensei smiled. "A slapstick comedian."

A True Buddhist

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"Sensei, I went to an Orthodox Buddhist temple last week."

"Sounds scary."

"The Priest there said that Zen isn't really Buddhism."

"That's between you and me. Don't tell our big donors anything about it."

"So you agree with him?"

"If you don't shut up you're going to put me out of business."

"So I'm not a true Buddhist?"

"Count yourself lucky."

"Why do you say that, Sensei?"

"If you ever met a true Buddhist, you probably wouldn't like him."

Listening To Heads

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"Rabbi," an Elder inquired, "after the services, you personally bless each congregant and then press your ear to their heads. Why do you do that?"

"I'm listening to see if anyone's in there," replied the Rabbi.

"And what have you discovered?" asked the Elder.

"Brother," the Rabbi said, "I'm afraid I'm all alone in this synagogue."

The High Art Of Blasphemy

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Through a series of misunderstandings, Sensei was promoted to Assistant Abbot of Koshoji. The Abbot had recently died and the Elders came to believe Sensei was the top candidate to be his replacement.

The Chief Elder said, "You are being considered for the honor of successorship. As you well know, Dogen Zenji founded this order over eight hundred years ago."

"We must all be forgiven for our mistakes," said Sensei.

"It has come to our attention that you have meditated for several hours a day for the past decade," noted the Elder.

"Sir," replied Sensei, "bad habits die hard."

"If appointed Abbot, how do you intend to further the Buddha Dharma?" pressed the Elder.

"Wild dogs can tell when the meat is rotten. From the stench of our practice, even the most worldly people will know to avoid us. But not even that," declared Sensei, "can stop the pure light from pervading all quarters of space."

"Is it not true," asserted the Elder, "that the Peerless Buddha Dharma is so vast that not even the Universe can contain it?"

"Certainly," snapped Sensei. "It is also true the Peerless Buddha Dharma is so small that it can be contained in the eye of a maggot feeding on a corpse."

After a short silence, the Elder inquired, "Who was Dogen Zenji?"

"In my humble opinion," said Sensei as he bowed his head slightly, "Dogen Zenji was an underpaid circus clown."

Spiritual Upstart Meets Adamantine Mind

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Spiritual Upstart confronted Adamantine Mind and said, "You say we should give up chanting the sutras, sitting in meditation and studying the commentaries. Then you assert we only need to see beyond name and form."

Adamantine Mind added, "And you can skip seeing beyond name and form too."

"If we have almost no spiritual practice, how are we to develop our faith?" wondered Spiritual Upstart.

"You need to stop developing things," declared Adamantine Mind.

"If I proceed that way," responded Spiritual Upstart, "how will I ever conquer my lusts and cravings?"

"You need to stop conquering things," added Adamantine Mind.

"Are you saying," pondered Spiritual Upstart, "that you find no hope of self-improvement?"

"No," concluded Adamantine Mind, "I'm saying that I have no hope of finding a self to improve."

Self-Improvement

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A middle-aged monk met with Sensei and said, "After years of meditating every day, I still see no improvement in my circumstances."

"I've told you dozens of times," replied the Master, "that we don't deal in self-improvement here. But since this matter is so important to you, I'm going to refer you to an associate of mine who works at Positive Visualization Systems. He teaches a thing called Life Transformation Technology."

The following day the monk moved out of the monastery and sought the spiritual guidance proffered by Positive Visualization Systems. When he met with his Life-Coaching Instructor, he was told the following:

"We create our world, every part of it, through our thoughts. The problem with the type of Buddhism your Master teaches is that it mentions old-age, sickness, death and impermanence. The mere admission of such thoughts, even momentarily, brings about negative results in your life. You've got to attain 100% control of your mind. Here's what I want you to do. All through the day, every day, you are to repeat to yourself:"

I am a winner in romance.

I am a winner in finance.  
In every endeavor,  
I am a winner forever.

Much to the monk's surprise, this simple technique worked. Within six months he was able to attract any woman he laid his eyes on and had founded a company that was already bringing in tens of thousands of dollars per month. After a year of unstoppable upward mobility, the monk decided it was time to let the Master know of his experiences.

"How has your self-improvement program worked out?" inquired Sensei.

"It was successful beyond my wildest dreams," replied the monk "I've discovered there's nothing I can't have if I just set my mind to it."

"Impressive," said Sensei. "Tell me, how do you pass your days?"

"I get up at five in the morning and do a forty-minute workout, grab a quick breakfast and try to get into the office before the traffic gets too heavy. I'm usually in meetings all morning and spend the afternoon returning phone calls. After work I try to get home as quickly as possible to change clothes before going out. Then I hurry to my girlfriend's house so we can get to a good restaurant and catch a movie before the lines get too long. We're usually done by about ten or so, unless we have sex, in which case it could be at least eleven, or later. Before bed I try to crack open a book or two, pay the bills, feed the cat, take care of correspondence and make a list of chores for the housekeeper."

"In light of your tremendous progress," said Sensei, "how do you view the monastic life you once lived?"

"I regard this place," replied the monk, "as a haven for old, ineffectual, sexless, burnt-out losers who've failed at everything and have nowhere else to go."

Sensei broke into a wide grin. "Does this mean you're coming back to stay?"

"The monk smiled back. "If my previous quarters are still available, I'd like to move back in next Monday."

Part IV

Only The Wicked Ones

Even if you can preach the whole great cannon of teachings,

this won't work either.

— Wumen

Renouncing The Faith

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The Master and a young student sat facing each other on meditation cushions. The Master was a bit fidgety and distracted.

"I am concerned," said the young student, "that my meditation practice lacks vigor."

"There's a lot to be said for maintaining a rather lukewarm meditation practice," noted the Master. "A zealous regimen could lead to the illusion of certainty."

"I was reading a Buddhist history book," said the young student.

"That's where the trouble starts," replied the Master who seemed to be staring into space.

"I was particularly struck by a passage," continued the young student, "which describes early followers of a certain Buddhist sect. Some heroically faced torture and execution."

"I always try to caution you folks against any sort of heroism," added the Master. "Bravery is the cause of far too much suffering in this world. By the way, why were they torturing and executing those fellows?"

"Apparently," replied the young student, "they chose to suffer and die rather than renounce their faith. I'm afraid my faith would never be that strong."

That's okay," assured the Master. "You have my permission to renounce your faith anytime you like, and you may reassert it at your leisure. If you're worried how the whole thing might come off, you can rehearse a self-denunciation right now and I will critique it."

"What would become of the Dharma if everyone had your attitude?" inquired the young student.

"The Dharma is so vast and pristine that no one can assist it or detract from it. The Dharma exists in the very structure of every atom and fills the entire void of space," proclaimed the Master. "Do you really think your martyrdom might assure the survival of the Unmanifest Whole?"

"But shouldn't I transcend my fear of suffering and death?" asked the young student.

"No, you shouldn't," insisted the Master. "If you ever attained such a lofty state, your egotism would be unbearable. What little compassion remains in you would surely be destroyed if you became fearless. In truth, your weakness is the only charming thing about you."

The Old Monk

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Some reporters attended a press conference to mark the conclusion of a Buddhist convention.

One reporter said, "Last week I watched a video called 'The Razor's Edge'. Would you say the film reflected the Buddhist search for truth?"

The old monk replied, "My Master once set up a rack of a thousand razor blades on the floor of the zendo and told us we could walk on them if we wanted to. A few of my associates got their feet cut pretty badly. After that, no one talked much about 'The Razor's Edge.'"

Another reporter asked, "Could you describe how your world view differs from the world-views of other religions?"

The old monk replied, "It is our observation that there are no permanent worlds and no permanent views."

A young journalist said, "I once read that Zen Buddhists learn to give up the past and the future. Eventually they come to see that only the present moment is real."

"Yes," the monk replied. "My Master told the novices of our sect to begin by abandoning the past and the future, admonishing us to cling to the present moment only. Later he told us to abandon the present moment also."

The Story of Politico

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Politico sat in front of Sensei. His heart was racing with anger.

"The news is bad, Sensei," said Politico. "It seems that a left-wing fanatic has been elected Governor. This will surely be the fiscal ruin of our state."

"The Governor," noted Sensei, "has done a few good things in his lifetime."

Four years later, Politico sat in front of Sensei. His heart was heavy with despair.

"Can you believe it, Sensei," he moaned. "They've gone and elected a right-wing extremist, and he's on his way to the Governor's mansion now."

"The Governor," noted Sensei, "has done a few good things in his lifetime."

Four years later, Politico sat in front of Sensei. He was utterly undone and in the throes of anxiety.

"We're in trouble now, Sensei," he cried. "Now the people have selected an unprincipled centrist to run the state. He compromises on everything and lives only to be reelected. Surely he will sell us all down the river."

"The Governor," noted Sensei, "has done a few good things in his lifetime."

Four years later, Politico rushed into Sensei's study in a state of ecstasy.

"Sensei!" he proclaimed. "Great news! We've finally elected the man I thought should be Governor all along. At last we have a leader with integrity and competence."

"The Governor," noted Sensei, "has done a few bad things in his lifetime."

Martyr's Training

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An agitated young man requested an urgent meeting with the Grand Mufti.

"I am ready to wage war against the infidel," proclaimed the young man triumphantly.

"First," insisted the Grand Mufti, "you must go back home and be the most loving Father and Husband you possibly can. Ask me again in two months, then perhaps I'll let you go."

The young man eagerly took on this assignment and returned to see the Grand Mufti at the appointed time.

"For the last two months I have showered my wife and children with love and gifts. I have never seen them happier. At last I can wage war against the infidel," asserted the young man.

"You're not ready yet," said the Grand Mufti. "The scriptures say we must generously help the poor. You're greatly lacking in this area. Spend an hour a day at the mosque dispensing food to the poor. Ask me again in two months, then perhaps I'll let you go."

The young man returned in two months, after diligently seeing to the needs of the poor, demanding the Mufti bless his request to wage war against the infidel.

"You have my word," promised the Grand Mufti. "I shall send you to wage war against the infidel. But you must accomplish just one more thing. When you go to work each day, resolve to treat each customer as though he were an honored guest. Do this for two months and you surely will be ready to be a warrior for the faith."

Two months later the young man took the Grand Mufti aside to speak. The young man's face had a sweet aspect, and his agitated manner was totally gone.

"The Grand Mufti looked at him and announced, "At last, you are qualified to be a martyr. I give you this sword as a token of your accomplishment."

The young man was humbled by the gift. He took it and said, "Honored Teacher, I am ashamed to admit this, but after following all of your instructions, my life has become so fulfilling that I found myself forgetting all about waging holy war."

The Grand Mufti replied, "You are the greatest kind of warrior, for you have conquered the real enemy, the infidel within."

Brief Dialogues

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"Sensei, I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave the congregation."

"That's fortunate, because otherwise I was going to have to throw you out."

"Why is it that everywhere I go people say our temple is full of corruption?"

"That's probably because I take bribes."

"Have you no compassion for sincere followers of the Path?"

"No, only the wicked ones receive my blessing."

"One Zen Master said you deserve to be shot for your insolence."

"It's true, I deserve to be shot, but since no one's done it yet, I'm still boss around here."

"What will become of the Dharma if we carry on this way?"

"The Dharma will be as pristine as polished glass."

"What about all the monks who've lived austere and rigorous lives?"

"One can only weep at the silliness of their plight."

"Is it true that this the age of the final disintegration of the Dharma?"

"Only for you. The rest of us are having the time of our lives?

A Divine Revelation

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"Sensei, you are legendary in your hatred of myths, spiritual imagery, ritual ceremonies and claims of supernatural inspiration."

"My revulsion for all such phenomena is so deep that I'm unable to find words to convey the magnitude of it."

"And that's why you are the last person I should be coming to at this time."

"Don't tell me you've had some hideous conversion experience."

"It's way worse than that. I believe I saw God and received a divine revelation. Perhaps I was hallucinating or had a psychotic break with reality. I was hoping you could bring me back down to earth and talk some sense into me before it's too late."

"I have had the pain and pleasure of watching you and your struggles for years. I have seen the pitiful grasping, nauseous clinging and desperate thrashing that have been the hallmark of your so-called spiritual journey."

"And so you see this latest revelation as an extension of my psychological sicknesses?"

"No, I believe you saw God."

"Then what shall I do about the divine revelation?"

"Try to forget it as quickly as possible."

Karmic Questions

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"Is there a karmic difference between an honest worker and an embezzler?"

"There is no karmic difference."

"Then what prevents everyone from becoming a thief?"

"There is no way to prevent them from becoming thieves."

"Don't you believe people behave better if they worry about bad karma or hell?"

"No, I don't believe they do."

"What are the moral foundations of Zen?"

"Since Zen is not supported by any foundations at all, there is no way for it to have moral foundations."

"What are the pillars of our faith?"

"If our faith has any pillars to speak of, they are floating about randomly in empty space."

"What would you do if someone stole your belongings?"

"I would have the thief arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

"On what moral code would you base this decision?"

"No moral code whatsoever."

"But if you call in the police, aren't you admitting that you believe there's a difference between right and wrong?"

"No, the only thing I am admitting is that I don't feel like sharing my belongings."

A Taoist Adept

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An obscure Zen student was traversing the boundless space between Existence and Non-Existence when he came upon a Taoist Adept seated in a marble shrine. Beneath the shrine were inscribed the words, "Returned To The Sourceless Source."

The Zen student asked, "How have you attained to such a lofty estate?"

"By living so inconspicuously that even my mother forgot I'd ever been born," replied the Taoist Adept.

The Zen student smiled and said, "Would you mind if I sat inside that marble shrine for a while?"

"Not at all," said the Taoist Adept. "But once you sit here, you can never return to the World of Empty Names and Forms."

"Perhaps I'm not ready for that," mused the Zen student. "Besides, my Sensei told us just yesterday, 'You pitiful seekers can wander among the Hundred Realms of Voidness any time you like, but you better make sure you're back in time to finish your chores or I'll pound you into the dust.'"

The Taoist Adept grinned. "Has your Sensei always been so compassionate?"

"His compassion is limitless," said the Zen student.

"Your kind of loyalty goes against the Great Flow," said the Taoist Adept rather forcefully.

"All right," conceded the Zen student, "Sensei has the temperament of an angry warthog."

"Thank you for being truly intimate with me," the Taoist Adept said. "I can sense that you are about to return to The World of Words and Judgments."

"Yes," confirmed the Zen student. "I feel it is my duty to return."

"Duty," replied the Taoist Adept, "what a sickening concept."

"Before I leave, Sir," inquired the Zen student respectfully, "may I ask how I might pass beyond the Perception of Right and Wrong?"

The Taoist Adept proclaimed, "You must practice one thousand lifetimes of Non-Interference In The Affairs of Others."

"How may I embark on such a journey?" said the Zen student.

"By taking The Sacred Vow Not To Save To World," replied the Taoist Adept.

"But I have taken a Buddhist vow to save all beings," objected the Zen student.

"Have you tried saving them through not-saving them?" asked the Taoist Adept.

"No," responded the Zen student. "What good would that do?"

"Early in my practice," concluded the Taoist Adept, "I was fortunate to discover that the more I engaged in the practice of not-saving people, the faster they became enlightened."

No Inward Signs

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"Allan Watts said the highest form of Buddhism is the form of Buddhism no one can see. He said the true Bodhisattva shows no outward signs of his religion."

"Are you showing any outward signs these days?"

"I think I've finally progressed to the point where I've stopped showing off my level of attainment. I no longer need the recognition and approval of others in order to sustain my Buddhist practice."

"You're almost there. But you must advance one step further."

"How may I advance beyond the state of showing no outward signs?"

"You also need to show no inward signs."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that although your practice remains totally hidden from the world, it is not the deepest practice."

"What practice would be deeper?"

"At first you learn to hide your Buddhism from the world. Later you learn to hide it from yourself."

Secret Revivalist Meets Big-Tent Evangelist

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Secret Revivalist would slip away from the monastery and go watch Big-Tent Evangelist preach every Sunday.

One Sunday Big-Tent Evangelist issued an altar call. Secret Revivalist came to the front, fell to his knees and hollered, "I repent!" He then rolled on the floor, sobbing and shouting incoherently.

After the meeting ended, Big-Tent Evangelist put his hand on Secret Revivalist's shoulder and asked, "Have you experienced The Salvation of the Lord?"

"Yes," proclaimed Secret Revivalist, as he wiped the tears from his eyes. "God has finally delivered me from all of your doctrines."

Boundless Generosity

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A well-known Ethics Professor spotted Sensei, who was going by the name of Boundless Generosity, at a community swimming pool one hot summer day. The Professor swam over to Sensei and challenged him. "I hear you're a very selfish man."

"I will not dispute the accusation," replied Sensei.

"I've heard that you won't even give one cent to charity," added the Professor.

"I cannot prove you wrong," said Sensei.

"Your ex-wife," continued the Professor, "tells everyone you're unbelievably miserly."

"I won't call her a liar," Sensei replied.

The Professor's voice became more authoritative. "What exactly do you contribute to humanity?"

"I show them The Great Law of Impermanence which enables them to see the precarious nature of the body and mind," asserted Sensei.

"That sounds rather abstract," the Professor quipped.

Suddenly Sensei grabbed the Professor's head and dragged him underwater. The Professor was barely able to escape and almost drowned. The police were called and charges were pressed. A year later, after Sensei's conviction, the Professor visited him in jail.

"Why," demanded the Professor, "did you try to kill me?"

"I felt immeasurable compassion for you," replied Sensei.

"You're not making any sense," said the Professor.

"Let me ask you this," said Sensei, "have you once, since the day we met in the swimming pool, taken your life for granted?"

"Of course not," responded the Professor. "But why would you go to prison just to make me feel grateful to be alive?"

Sensei shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's all due to my boundless generosity."

Cause For Celebration

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"Sensei, maintaining my lifestyle is becoming a burden."

"Then don't maintain it."

"It seems all I do is rush from place to place."

"Then stop rushing."

"If I don't keep a sharp eye on things, my fortune will slowly dwindle away."

"Then let it dwindle away slowly."

"What will I do when my holdings are depleted?"

"Have tea in the morning, eat rice in the afternoon, wander the streets in the evening."

"What shall I do in the meantime?"

"For now, enjoy your wealth in a leisurely manner. In the future, should you become a pauper, enjoy your indigence in a leisurely manner."

"I'll lose my family and friends if I do that."

"What a stroke of luck that will be. As soon as you're rid of them, I'll throw you a party."

On Romance And Blackmail

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"Sensei, I have written a poem about a woman I love."

"Have you given her the poem?"

"I am afraid to give her the poem for fear she will never speak to me again."

"That could be a great boon. If I only I had been lucky enough to frighten away all the women I'd been infatuated with. When they rejected me, I suffered in an ordinary way. When they accepted me, our somewhat-miserable lives became a living hell."

"Are you saying I might never see her again."

"You will always see her in your mind's eye."

"Shouldn't I try to put this infatuation behind me?"

"Only if you want to end up half-human."

"But what if my efforts are futile?"

"Love is never futile, only the attempt to control one's love is futile."

"What if she stops refusing me and one day wants to marry me?"

"You should leave the monastery at once and marry her."

"She is a temperamental woman and will surely divorce me within a year."

"Then, after a year, when she leaves you, come back here and continue your monastic life."

"But why marry her for a year, lose her and then end up back here in an even worse condition than before?"

"Because otherwise you would be a boring person."

"I don't remember the Buddha saying it was wrong to be boring."

"That's because he was sort of boring."

"How can you call yourself a Buddhist when you're always blaspheming the Buddha?"

"It's easy, first you call yourself a Buddhist, then blaspheme the Buddha."

"Are your superiors aware of your heresy?"

"Yes, but they don't dare argue with me about it because I'm horrifyingly wicked when people attempt to argue with me."

"Couldn't they simply dismiss you from your post and banish you from the order?"

"They could, but these are easily intimidated men. After the first time they threatened me with expulsion, I told them I would burn down all their temples."

"Did they actually fall for that?"

"Maybe not. Perhaps it was the fact that I threatened to tell everyone about their sex lives and their drinking habits."

"So you resorted to blackmail in order to keep your job as a Priest?"

"Sure, isn't that what all great religious leaders do?

Dialogues With Sister Dharmastream

*

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"Yuanwu said that Buddhas have never appeared in the world?"

"He had a bad case of dyspepsia."

"But is it true?"

"He's probably right."

"If no Buddhas have ever appeared in the world, how can we have a religion called Buddhism?"

"Because this discussion never happened."

*

"I want to become less self-conscious."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"Because I feel I need to trust my heart more."

"You don't need to trust your heart. It operates fine whether you trust it or not."

"I'm not speaking of the physical heart. I'm talking about the emotional heart."

"When did the heart divide into two parts?"

"I'm saying that I want to be free of my constant intellectualizing. I want to learn to trust my feelings."

"I'm sorry to change the subject, but I thought you should know that I'm being charged by the police with embezzling $30,000 from this temple."

"The charges are certainly false! Your name must be cleared!"

"Not hardly. As you Americans like to say, I'm as guilty as sin."

"That's horrible! I'm shocked!"

"Okay, so I made that story up. But notice how readily you trusted your feelings."

*

"My husband suddenly left me."

"Ah! Finally! Now you have your chance to dedicate yourself fully to the Dharma Path."

"He's leaving me for a younger woman."

"Would you rather he left you for an older woman?"

"I just want him to come back home."

"If he returns to you, what will he do with his new lover?"

"He needs to stop seeing her this instant."

"But he obviously loves her more than you."

"He only thinks he does. It's just an infatuation."

"Great! Then he'll get over it and come back to you."

"Then I won't take him back. It'll be too late."

"What if he doesn't want to come back right now?"

"He should do it even though he doesn't want to. It's his moral obligation. He has to live up to the vows he took on our wedding day."

"So then you would accept it if he said something along the lines of the following: 'Since I must, I'll come and live with you, even though it will make me dreadfully unhappy. The whole time I will be wishing I was with my new lover, but I will get rid of her just the same, since it is my duty. And while we live together, my feelings toward you will be cold and distant and we'll have no sex life. But at least we'll be honoring our vows.'"

"No, of course not. I would feel even worse if he said that. The feelings need to be spontaneously genuine."

"So he is morally obligated to force himself to spontaneously be genuinely in love with you?"

"Yes."

"And how would one go about forcing one's self to spontaneously be genuinely in love with another person for whom one genuinely feels revulsion?"

"It has to come spontaneously, from the heart."

"So he is morally obligated to spontaneously feel that he genuinely loves you and is morally obligated to spontaneously feel that he is not attracted to younger women?"

"Sensei, sometimes I just hate you."

"Yes, sometimes I hate me too. Too bad we both have to live with me. But, if you could, to prove your devotion to me as your teacher, please spontaneously feel that you always genuinely like me, and feel it from the heart."

*

"My psychiatrist says I'm sabotaging myself."

"Really? Can you give me an example of your self-sabotage?"

"I'm always getting fired from my jobs. I try really hard, but I'm always undermining myself."

"How do you undermine your own efforts?"

"I set out to remember all of my duties, but I always forget the most critical ones at the very worst times, so that my employers have no choice but to dismiss me."

"And what is your feeling at the moment you walk out of the building for the last time?"

"A sense of overwhelming relief."

"It sounds to me like you don't enjoy those jobs."

"Of course not. I hate them. But I have to try to work or my friends and family will think I'm a bum."

"There is no doubt you are trying to work."

"But they can tell I'm getting fired because I'm spacing out because I don't really like to work. And they won't admire me unless I truly want to work."

"So now you'd like to convince yourself to love work in order to prove to others that it's not really true that you hate work, although you really hate it now and have always hated it before?"

"Why do you make fun of everyone like this? You're supposed to be comforting your visitors, but all you do is upset them further. What's the point in acting this way?"

"I don't know. It must be self-sabotage."

*

"People say I'm superficial, and I feel guilty about it."

"In what way are you superficial?"

"I only want to date people who fit the Hollywood stereotype of a good looking person. And I find myself rejecting people of great intellect, unimpeachable character and profound wisdom, simply on the basis of their appearance."

"And why is that a problem?"

"Because I'd like to be a deeper person."

"And how can I help you be a deeper person?"

"Clearly I'm wanting all the wrong things. I want to learn to want the right things."

"So you don't want to want what you want. Instead you want to want what others want you to want so that you could demonstrate that you never really wanted what you want so that they won't think you're superficial?"

"Yes."

"Don't you think it's very superficial of you to want people to think you're not superficial? Maybe it would be deeper if you let them think you are superficial even though it might be the case that you're really deep."

"But I don't feel very deep. I feel like a phony."

"How shallow of you to assume that the way you feel about yourself is the way you really are."

"Then if I'm not the way I feel that I am, you tell me, am I a shallow person or a deep person?"

"In the great Ocean of Dharma there are no depths and no shallows, just wave after wave after wave.

Part V

The Great Pretense

If you see the verbal teachings

of Buddhas and Patriarchs as mortal enemies,

only then will you have the qualifications for penetrating study.

— Dongshan

After The Meeting

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After a meeting of the general assembly, the Master spent just a few minutes in an antechamber behind the altar addressing the most intimate concerns of his closest disciples.

"Sensei, I have diligently searched for a purpose in life and yet only come up feeling empty."

"A greater emptiness will await you should you have the misfortune of actually finding a purpose for your life."

"What happens when a person finds a specific meaning to their life?"

"Oh Virtuous Ones, only then does The Great Pretense begin."

"Sensei, when you say that we all live in the long shadow of your grace, it seems to most of us that you are being rather patronizing and condescending."

"Do not denigrate patronization and condescension. Without them, I assure you, Holy Dharma Lions, we would have all been dead long ago."

"What is this long shadow of grace?"

"I promise each of you this: Through no particular effort on your part, you shall all attain to The Great Extinction."

"By whose effort shall we all be saved?"

"No one anywhere will make any effort, not the gods, nor myself, nor you, nor any other being."

"How can we trust you regarding this matter when you cannot say who the guarantor of our Liberation shall be?"

"The moment of Liberation occurs exactly when you see your Salvation as completely uncaused and coming from no source."

"How can such a great thing happen with no cause and no source."

"As soon as you all know, I shall retire from this business."

"How is The Great Faith to be attained?"

"By being willing to see your condition in such a way that the true nature of all your thoughts and all your actions becomes utterly transparent."

"How can an ordinary human being enter such a condition?"

"By entering the state of No Calculation."

"I cannot conceive of a state of No Calculation."

"That is because you've not attained the state called Naturalness."

"How may we commence our search for The Way of Naturalness?"

"By first realizing that no person who has attained The Way of Naturalness ever commenced a search for it."

"So we are to abandon The Way?"

"No, you are not to abandon The Way, you are to abandon your search for it."

"Sensei, I was told a story by a Catholic Priest of a great Christian Saint who came out of his dwelling completely naked and wandered the streets preaching the gospel."

"What were the results of his actions?"

"The Priest said that the Saint was arrested, tortured and then beheaded in a public square."

"What did the Cleric say was the significance of the story?"

"I came here to ask you, since the Priest was suddenly called away on an urgent matter before we could complete the conversation."

"The gospel being preached was not one of doctrines, but of Bold Clarity beyond The Teachings of The Sages. The Nakedness Before The World represents the attainment of a state of total honesty. The subsequent arrest, torture and beheading represent the world's antimony towards anyone who speaks The Truth of Our Fundamental Condition."

"Was the world wrong to persecute such an honest soul?"

"Not exactly."

"Why not?"

"Because without the Great Pretense, no Ocean of Birth and Death could exist."

"What is the Great Pretense."

"It is the device through which The World pretends not to know Itself."

"What good does The World do by pretending not to know Itself?"

"It is only through the dramatic device of Being Hidden-From-Itself that The World can come into Existence at all."

"What did The World do before it came into Existence?"

"It dwelled in the Sacred Non-Existence of The Dharma Non-Body."

"Aren't you really saying that The World used to Exist in Non-Existence?"

"Yes."

"How can a thing Exist and Not-Exist at the same time?"

"Just ask any man who's been married more than ten years. He will be able to clarify the matter immediately."

Atonement

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"The ancient Jews atoned for their sins through sacrifices. The Christians atone for their sins by trusting Jesus. Hindus are freed from sin by bathing in the Ganges. How can a Buddhist have his sins forgiven?" inquired a layman.

"By not believing in them," replied the Master.

Authenticity

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"Sensei, I want to be more authentic."

"In what ways have you been inauthentic?"

"I don't admire my employers or my relatives, and yet I pretend to have respect for them in order to avoid conflict."

"So you honestly don't like them, and you honestly don't want them to know. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Sounds like the real thing to me."

"But I'd like to have the courage to speak my genuine feelings."

"But you're genuinely afraid to?"

"Right."

"Would it be fair to say that you are authentically intimidated by these people?"

"Yes, it would."

"Would it be honest to pretend to be braver than you are?"

"I suppose not."

"Then the most authentic thing you can be right now is a coward who is afraid to share his opinions. Congratulations, you've attained your goal already."

Bipolar Bodhisattva

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The Master's mental health had deteriorated substantially. The monks were keeping him out of the public eye for fear the leaders of the sect would have him removed from his post.

His students began to suspect it was all over when, on a chilly spring morning, the Master emerged from his private meditation room and entered the dining hall where the monks were eating breakfast.

'Oh my Little Bikhu," whined the Master to his favorite disciple, "won't you please come answer a question?"

The monks all snickered a bit because the man the Master was referring to was about six-foot-five and over 230 pounds. The embarrassed monk rose from his seat and forlornly waddled into the Master's meditation room.

"Tell me, Little Bikhu, won't you," said the Master weakly, "when Shunryu Suzuki died, where did he go?"

"The scientific answer," replied Little Bikhu, "must be that his consciousness evaporated and his body dissolved into the dust."

The monks looked up suddenly from their plates and heard a thwap! The master had rapped Little Bikhu's knuckles with a cane. Little Bikhu ran from the room groaning in agony.

The Master came from the door of his meditation room and shouted, "Don't you try to give me no school-boy physics lesson, you sophomoric sycophant!"

*

The next day the Master again emerged from his meditation room as the monks were having their afternoon tea.

"Oh my Little Bikhu," sang the Master is a squeaky nasal tone, "won't you please come answer a question?"

The hulking monk grimaced and shot everyone a defiant look as he stomped off to see his increasingly mad Master.

"Tell me, Little Bikhu, won't you," said the Master in a throaty half-whisper, "when Shunryu Suzuki died, where did he go?"

In an attempt to play along with what looked like the Master's dreamy state, Little Bikhu replied, "He went to Tushita Heaven where he sits at the right hand of Maitreya singing praises to the Dharma Body."

The Master leapt forward on top of Little Bikhu and began choking him violently. The other monks rushed in and dragged the Master, kicking and screaming, to his bed.

When the Master again called Little Bikhu to his meditation room just before the evening meal, Little Bikhu arrived with three angry-looking monks. One of them, a tall, sinewy fellow with bulging biceps said plainly, "Master, one more outburst from you and we're tossing you into the van and checking you into the psychiatric ward. Do you understand me?"

The Master peered up at the three monks and their mutinous leader. His eyes were like that of a guilty child. He blushed and began to weep.

A middle-aged monk with a sweet aspect came forward and put his hand on the Master's shoulder, and asked in a kindly tone, "Master, you've been torturing us with these koans for years now and no one ever answers to your satisfaction, so why don't you just go ahead and tell us the answers once in a while, just so we can get the drift of where you're coming from?"

The Master put his face in his hands and began to sob uncontrollably, crying out, "Don't you see, my Little Bikhu? I don't know the answers to any of my questions! I was truly hoping you might know where that wonderful man, Shunryu Suzuki, went after he died. I just can't seem to get a handle on it."

The Master continued to wail and shriek for hours on end after this and concluded that he must kill himself.

"I've been exposed as the fraud I really am. What is to become of me? I haven't one student as deluded as I am. What can be my profession now? Would it not be more honorable for me to die? Yes, I must do the honorable thing," proclaimed the Master as rambled on incoherently for half the night.

The tall sinewy monk arose from his bed a 2:00 AM, clenched his fist and declared, "That is it! I'm not living with this bullshit one moment longer!"

Marching over to Little Bikhu's cell, he switched on the light and exclaimed, "You're his closest disciple! You have to make this decision! Now get up and do what you have to do!"

Little Bikhu rose sadly from his bed, tossed his robe around himself and went two cells over from his own. He found the mild-mannered, middle-aged monk and a short, burly fellow who used to be a wrestler in college.

"Okay guys," said Little Bikhu in a soft, matter-of-fact tone, full of resignation and weariness, "we got to take the Master in."

"You mean to the nut-house?" said the burly fellow as he struggled to prop open his sagging eyes.

Little Bikhu only nodded in the affirmative, but said nothing more.

The tall, sinewy fellow and the short, burly one made short business of restraining the Master who was no match for even one of them. Little Bikhu turned his head as he could not watch his Master being taken into custody in such a manner. As they drove to the hospital, the mild-mannered, middle-aged man put his arm around Little Bikhu's shoulder and whispered comforting things to the Master's number-one disciple.

It turned out that the tall, sinewy fellow had the best instinct of any of them. When they brought the Master in, the head psychiatrist came down and told them that if they'd waited even a few more hours, it was almost a certainty that the Master would have committed suicide.

*

Within weeks the Master was his old self. The increasingly violent behavior he had previously exhibited was practically nonexistent at that point.

One breezy afternoon, the monks were seated on the floor around their beloved Master and posing questions in the usual manner.

At one point, Little Bikhu looked at the Master and said, "By the way, since you can't answer any koans, how was it that you were promoted to the position of Zen Master?"

"Little Bikhu," replied the Master, "here's how it all came about: You see, each time my Master would pose a question to me, I would come up with some answer that I was very satisfied with, only to see my Master slam his fist against the wall and say, 'You stinking poser! You'll never see The Clear Light That Pervades All of Space, not now, now ever!"

Little Bikhu said softly, "That seems a bit too harsh, don't you think?"

"Not for that time," noted the Master. "He would be what you kids these days call 'old school.'"

"In all your years with your Master," asked Little Bikhu, "did you ever get one question right?"

"Not completely," said the Master. "But later, from time to time, I would have a small breakthrough, nothing spectacular, mind you, and my Master would concede, 'Ah well, that answer's not as hideously craven as the others. I suppose we should leave it at that.'"

Ever since the onset of the Master's illness, Little Bikhu and the others treated the Master like an ailing Father, in spite of the fact he was now in perfect health. They came to love him so much that they took to tucking their insecure teacher into bed each night, owing to the fact that he had come around to also telling them he was afraid of the dark.

"Master," said Little Bikhu, sitting on the edge of the Master's bed as he lay tucked under the covers, "how is it that we need you so, now that we see how totally useless you are?"

The Master grinned excitedly, like a little boy whose Mother makes fun of him, but only as a way of expressing affection.

The tall, sinewy man crossed his arms in mock disapproval and gently chided, "What if you ever had to get a real job? That would surely be the end of you, wouldn't it, Master?"

The Master said in a childish voice, "Absolutely the end of me."

Then the Master looked around with a slightly concerned expression and said, "You won't tell the sect leaders the truth of my condition, will you?"

"Don't you worry, Master," said the burly fellow as he shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other, "your secret's safe with us."

A Chat With King Yama

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Dharmamaya had faced death with super-human valor. During the length of his terminal illness, he never complained once, making it a point to smile at visitors till his very last breath. Through strict diet, proper exercise, clean living and endless meditation, he had managed to still his mind and move beyond the experience of fear.

Upon arriving at the gates of the highest Buddhist heaven, he came upon the Hindu god Brahmá, (the creator), who prevented his entry into The Land of Eternal Nirvana.

"But Brahmá" Dharmamaya exclaimed, "my practice was flaw-less! How could you possibly deny me entry? I have earned a permanent end to suffering. You owe it to me to let me pass!"

Brahmá said, "You had better go and see King Yama, (the god of death), about this matter."

Completely flustered and furious, Dharmamaya marched up to The Throne of King Yama and demanded an immediate justification for this unfair turn of events.

King Yama laughed and said, "Ah, so that tricky fellow Brahmá sends you to me to break the bad news. Why is it that he gets out of having to do all the dirty work?"

Dharmamaya was not at all amused and stared ahead, fuming, his eyes wide-open and bulging.

"Okay, I'll get down to business, since you're not in the mood for jokes," said King Yama flatly. "You must know from the early scriptures that Brahmá created this world out of the sacred cloth of divine illusion, right?"

"Right!" insisted Dharmamaya, "and the whole object of the spiritual life is to get beyond the illusion. And I accomplished that perfectly!"

"I'm afraid you've not done as well for yourself as you thought," said King Yama as he shook his head slowly. "How can the object of a game be to avoid the game itself? Brahmá wouldn't build a universe just so we could avoid its laws, would he? Unless you're prepared to go over there and tell him he screwed up, then I think you'll have to reexamine your assumptions."

"Where did I go wrong?" said Dharmamaya plaintively.

"For you," said King Yama, "life consisted of searching for a series of techniques. And you believed if you could only line up the right methods and employ them with ever greater precision, then you'd mechanically build the solution to your problem. You managed to achieve some impressive objectives, but, unfortunately, your life was entirely inauthentic."

"But don't the scriptures say . . ." started Dharmamaya.

"Damn those rascals!" shouted King Yama with a feigned fury. "I've got to tell them to stop planting decoys in the scriptures. The game is challenging enough without tossing in those extra puzzles."

"Am I to conclude," said Dharmamaya dejectedly, "that I'll have to face another rebirth and another life of suffering?"

"Yes," said King Yama, "but this time try to let go of the idea of letting go, then the idea of clinging drops off by itself."

As Dharmamaya turned to wander sadly into the Wheel of Birth and Death, King Yama called out to him, "And one more thing, Dharmamaya, don't be so afraid of looking like a fool when you suffer. That was one form of egotism you never conquered."

Courage In The Face Of Catastrophic Bodily Transitions

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Little Bikhu came to the Master's quarters in order to discuss the supreme spiritual problem.

"Sensei, I'm having spiritual problems.'

"Little Bikhu," the Master inquired, "where is your spirit?"

"I do not know its location," replied Little Bikhu.

"We cannot discuss your spiritual problems," stated the Master, "until you can locate this spirit that you are having problems with."

*

About four days later Little Bikhu returned with some more information. He gave a little speech, all the time imitating the cadence and mannerisms of the Master.

"Sensei, I've realized that there is no separate spirit and no separate body. My problems can't be spiritual or physical, since there is no demarcation between the two. In fact, there can be no dividing line between them, because there are neither divisions nor lines in the universe. So, regarding my question, I see that there can be no answer."

Sensei was flattered that Little Bikhu should know his style so well that it could be parodied like that.

"I'm glad you saw that for yourself, because if you hadn't," noted Sensei, "I would have had a hell of a time trying to explain it to you."

*

The next day Little Bikhu again returned to see the Master.

"I want to clarify the issue that first bothered me," said Little Bikhu. "I didn't get to my original question in our last two meetings because I had framed the question in an errant way."

"I could be in trouble here," said the Master with a bit of a concerned look.

"How could that be?" inquired Little Bikhu.

"Usually I get out of having to answer hard questions by teasing people about the presuppositions that they bring to any question. Most of the time that throws them off the trail pretty well," explained the Master. "Fortunately for me, they are usually so flustered by the whole thing that they can never press me on the super hard stuff."

"Time to earn your pay now," cracked Little Bikhu in a feigned ominous tone.

"Okay, let's give it a shot," said the Master. "But if I can't deliver the goods, please keep that between you and me."

*

"Sensei," began Little Bikhu, "I don't want to hear any smart remarks about the things I study. I want you to address this question, not my studying habits."

"Damn you. You've prefaced this thing in such a way as to wreck all of my best lines," protested the Master.

"Right, that's the problem with having intimate students," replied Little Bikhu. "After a while they're hip to your tricks."

"I should have transferred you when I had the chance, back when they were opening up that new temple in Orange County," lamented Sensei.

*

"I've been reading some more of those Vedanta books," began Little Bikhu, and I noticed that the theme of fearlessness in the face of death keeps coming up. Some Buddhist teachers also emphasize this. Dogen Zenji dismissed the death of the body as a mere trifle. Are we truly expected to attain such a state of serenity? Can we be honestly expected to be that brave? In all earnestness, I'm skeptical that such courage is widely available to humanity, even with rigorous practice."

"Your skepticism is well-founded, Little Bikhu," replied the Master. "At this temple we have no such superstitions or mythologies. Regarding the immense threats of physical injury and total dissolution, we never ask that anyone display any courage whatsoever. We only ask that people be courageous about facing life, since they spend most of their lives not terminally ill. And we are very permissive regarding the cowardice that naturally arrives when the loss of physical capacity and mental functioning have reached a critical state."

*

"Even though you preach against making distinctions," noted Little Bikhu, "it seems you've made a clear-cut distinction."

"Sure," chuckled the Master. "That 'no-distinctions' stuff is just for the beginners, to keep them from deluding themselves. Once one is availed of the Clear Mind State of The Bodhisattvas, there is no distinction between making distinctions and not making distinctions."

"Wow!" replied Little Bikhu with genuine surprise. "I'm impressed, Sensei! After all the years that I've known you, you're still able to pull some rabbits out of hats."

"Yes," stated Sensei with a feigned arrogance. "Even as my notoriety fades, I still hold back some of the best lines as long as possible, just to let my detractors know, once in a while, that I'm still the old boss."

"Nice," said Little Bikhu. "But regarding my earlier question, I would appreciate it if you would blatantly give me some procedural guidance in dealing with my fears."

"Ah, the 'real answer' thing," mused Sensei. "For you? Why not?"

*

"My Little Bikhu," said the Master, "do not try to overcome your fear of injury, illness, dementia and death. In most cases, this only leads to an unhealthy obsession with the very fear one is trying to conquer. Instead, urge yourself to delay your fear until such time as fear is appropriate. In that way, even if life's great catastrophes do throw you into a state of panic, you will not be panicked often, since most of life does not consist of great catastrophes. We only ask that you be honest about your condition. Once the true condition is seen for what it is, the body and mind are not judged for their natural reactions to real and present stimulus."

"This sounds familiar," winked Little Bikhu, "but could you refresh my memory a bit more."

"Certainly," replied the Master. "I have always said that when a thought arises in the mind about a future tragedy, or about the ramifications of a current tragedy, that one perform a simple assessment. One simply asks one's self, 'In this very moment, am I confronting the tragedy I feared, or is this simply a possible preliminary stage?' I say that once the tragedy itself arrives, one should feel free to feel whatever one feels. The only time I've ever advised anything like the suppression of fear is when the feared item is not actually present, and here I mean 'not-actually-present' in the common, worldly usage."

*

"Give me an example of a specific scenario in which these very principles would apply," pressed Little Bikhu.

"I'm going to start demanding that you students wire your parents for more money to support me, if you insist on making me work this hard," quipped Sensei.

"Ah, I'm such a slave driver," whined Little Bikhu mockingly.

"Hmph!," said the Master, pretending to be offended.

"Oh," snapped Little Bikhu, "I didn't hurt your feelings. You're only acting like you're grumpy."

*

The Master smiled and continued: "Consider the case of our fearing a certain illness or the possibility of profound economic losses. We must ask ourselves, have the losses occurred, or are they merely rumored to occur? Has the illness progressed to the point where debilitating symptoms are now upon us? If so, we can honorably scream in horror, cry in agony, or whatever else the body naturally does in the event of a true emergency.

"Most of our worries," continued Sensei, "are similar to the man who goes to the hospital and says, 'Help me! I am certain to die!' The doctors will send him on his way because the worry that disaster will one day come is not the same as the moment the disaster actually occurs.

"When a cobra strikes, it is natural to leap back and flee, screaming in horror as one evades the beast. In such a circumstance, courage is unwarranted and even destructive. Cowardice, in these situations, is nothing other than the wisdom of the body. But we are mostly like a man who has heard of snake attacks in the countryside. He takes the warnings to heart and rushes through the woods in terror, although he has not personally been confronted by a venomous serpent. With each rustle of the bushes he shouts, 'Cobra!'"

*

"You see, Sensei?" concluded Little Bikhu. "It's not so bad to give a little sermon once in a while."

"Uh!" sighed the Master, milking it for all it was worth. "I tell you, this job is too demanding for a person as delicate as I. After what you've put me through today, there better be a new bottle of sake in it for me tonight."

"Don't you worry, Sensei," said Little Bikhu in a parental tone, "Me and the boys were already planning a trip to the liquor store tonight. You'll be well taken care of, you greedy mooch."

After Little Bikhu left the room, the Master was giddy with joy.

These Fragments Of Porcelain

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The dreaded Master Fujikami turned to his lover as he was heading towards his quarters and said, "My dear, I am going to take a nap now. I would like to know, will you still love me when I wake up . . . or will your love for me have died by then?"

Before his lover could answer, the tea cup she was holding slipped out of her hand and shattered on the floor. She quickly rushed forward to clean up the mess.

"Please don't throw away these fragments of porcelain," said Master Fujikami. "They are all I have left."

God

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Lao Tzu had been traversing the breast of the Great Valley where Being and Not-Being cancel each other out. He was thirsty for The Water That Quenches All Thirst, so he stopped down at the stream of No-Object / No-Subject to fill his jug. He looked up and saw that The Lord God On His Throne had left The Kingdom of Heaven in order to pray. Lao Tzu was struck by this scene and stood silently, watching in amazement.

The Lord God On His Throne was kneeling down with folded hands, looking at the sky as he spoke. Lao Tzu was unable to make out the words because of the noise of the rushing of the stream.

"Who are you praying to?" called out Lao Tzu.

The Lord God On His Throne turned his head and glared at Lao Tzu, then turned back and continued whispering to the sky.

Lao Tzu crossed the shallow stream and stood next to The Lord God On His Throne and said, "What are you praying for?"

The Lord God On His Throne sighed heavily and said, "What do you want!"

"Forgive me, sir," said Lao Tzu, "but you seem to be delirious. Have you undergone some trauma?"

"In fact I have," confessed The Lord God On His Throne as he turned around and sat cross-legged on the ground.

"What seems to be on your mind," ventured Lao Tzu, "if you don't mind my asking?"

"Buddha came up to my throne the other day," replied The Lord God On His Throne.

Lao Tzu looked incredulous, and he said, "And what did he want with you?"

"He said he came to preach the four noble truths to me," replied The Lord God On His Throne. "In the process he managed to convince me that all phenomena are transient and empty of permanent essence."

"Why did that trouble you so?" inquired Lao Tzu with a concerned look on his face.

"Because," said The Lord God On His Throne, "he subsequently asked me what the source of my being was."

"What was your reply?" asked Lao Tzu intently.

"I told him that I was the source of my own being, that I was self-created from all eternity. But Buddha told me that if I had been self-created, there would have been a moment when I created myself; but since I could not recall such a moment, and since I myself admitted I'd been around forever, he then pointed out that I, like all phenomena, am uncreated and have no source. Since then, I have been praying for an answer to this riddle."

Smiling lightly, Lao Tzu knelt next to The Lord God On His Throne, took his hand and said lovingly, "Not even you are beyond the reach of Buddha's compassion."

The Idol Of Amida Fo Temple

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A Zen temple and a Pure Land Temple sat across the street from each other. Both Abbots felt terribly competitive, and they would do anything to undermine the credibility of the other. Everyone clearly saw that the underhanded warfare would continue for decades.

Always searching for some way to outsmart his rival, or to offend him to the point of utter vexation, the Abbot of the Amida Fo Temple contrived a new scheme to thoroughly unnerve his nemesis. According to plan, he dragged the village's most notorious malingering bum off of the street and into a side room of the temple. There he threatened the poor vagabond in horrifying ways, saying he would use his connections at the village police department to have him charged with some fabricated crime and thrown into jail. If the hobo wanted to save himself, he would have to play along.

Because he wielded a big cane and would not tolerate being questioned, all of the monks would comply with his most bizarre orders. They were to install the village bum onto a throne on the altar, and there, for one full week, day and night, they were to worship the vagrant as a veritable god.

"The very highest of The Buddha Nature resides in this man. The fact that you monks can't see it is a testament to your hopeless condition!" shouted the Abbott. His students cravenly chanted sutras at the malingerer's feet, adorned him with flowers, waved incense before his face and made dozens of offerings of food. No time or expense was spared exalting this hapless hobo.

Word soon leaked out across the street about this filthy affair. The Abbot of the Zen temple fumed day and night. It irked him that the other Abbot could indulge himself so freely. Had the Zen Abbot even toyed with such an idea, his sect leaders would toss him out on his ears.

"Why?" the other Abbott cried to himself, "does that Amida Fo fellow get all the leeway he wants. It's as though he acts with impunity. Is there no justice at all in this barbaric province?"

On the sixth day, as the worship ceremonies were well under way at the Amida Fo temple, the doors burst open. The Zen Abbott stood at the fore of the invading group.

"You stinking bum! How dare you falsely occupy the Bodhisattva's throne? Get out! Get out of this temple now or I'll drag you out by your scraggly, maggot-ridden beard! Do you hear me?"

The hobo, who had become quite comfortable in his new role as the object of worship, looked around indignantly.

"Are you not aware," the bum said in a haughty tone, "that my minions stand ready to protect me from such insults?"

"They might be ready," replied the Zen Abbott, "but they are not at all able." The Abbott and the monks from the other temple proceeded to pull thick cudgels from their robes, knocking over vases and rice bowls as they marched quickly to the throne itself. The craven monks of the Amida Fo temple scattered and the bum fled for his very life. All the while, the Amida Fo Abbott laughed until he wept for joy.

It was only at that point that the other Abbot saw he'd been had. "Damn!" the Zen Abbot shouted. "You think you can make a fool of me? I'll show you who's the fool!"

The Zen Abbot came over and knocked the Amida Fo Abbot off the stool he'd been sitting on. But the Amida Fo Abbott fell to the floor and began laughing even louder, clutching his sides because they ached from the uncontrollable fits of giggling which gripped his body.

Hopelessly outfoxed, the Zen Abbot and his followers stalked out of the temple, sullen, angry and defeated.

As he was strutting about the village, gloating like a delusional drunkard, the Amida Fo Abbott ran right into the village bum. "Oh, listen, I'm sorry," said the Abbott with a sudden change of tone. "It was unfair, doing what I did to you. It was all just to . . ."

" . . . get back at your rival. I know," said the bum, breaking into a gleeful grin.

"Then, you forgive me for my short-sighted folly?" inquired the Abbot earnestly.

"Forgive you?" replied the hobo. "You don't understand, my friend. I really felt like Buddha up there."

What Joku's Student Saw

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Joku entered the zendo to find his most moody student sitting Za Zen alone. No incense was burning. No candles were lit. Only a creamy light shone dully against the back wall. The air was crisp and the rickety back door had been propped open. Joku's heart sank just a bit. He felt a great love and joy, but it was tempered by the soberness of the moment.

"So," said Joku, looking intently and dryly at a spot on the floor, "Then you saw the whole thing."

"Right," replied the student in a melancholy, but deeply serene tone.

"Whew!" said Joku, looking for one instant very intently in his student"s eyes and then politely, even reverently, turning away and gazing at the side door, as though it needed cleaning. "I'm not so sure that's good."

"I have a sense of what you mean. Already I can feel the disadvantages weighing heavily on my heart, almost like an iron bar on my chest," noted the student.

Joku turned back and glanced here and there, sometimes in the student's face, sometimes not. "You probably already know my opinion about this."

"Of course. You think it's too soon," asserted the student.

"And you would know," commented Joku rather blandly.

"Yep," droned the student in a matter-of-fact way.

"So you saw all the way through, the whole way, didn't you?" inquired Joku impatiently.

"There and back again to the point where . . ."

" . . . to where no one's ever going to be able to fool you again."

"Ex-act-ly," chanted the student.

"In a way," ventured Joku, "it's a damn shame when it comes at this age."

"Until now," replied the student earnestly, "I would have never thought so."

"But now, now that you see the way people really are, and now that you know the whole course of their lives and the very core of their personalities, years, even decades before they do," continued Joku, "then . . . loving them, you know . . . it's going to be a real challenge."

"Yeah," said the student with sad wonder. "They'll drift away, won't they, since . . . you know . . . you're not really in the game at all any more."

Joku shook his head, put one hand on his hip and leaned against a railing. Looking out another door to the left, he said, "This kind of loneliness . . . it's better, I think, when you're . . ."

" . . . on your way out anyway," concluded the student.

"Ex-act-ly," chanted Joku.

"How will I fill up the next few decades?" inquired the student.

"That whole thing is just one dirty business," concluded Joku.

"You found out a bit prematurely too, didn't you, Joku?" asked the student.

"The first damn week, really," replied Joku.

"So what have you done in the meantime," inquired the student.

Joku waved his hand dismissively and said, "Ah, it's just like any job. You spend most of the time faking like you're working."

This Visiting Minister Said

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"I am often called from the sect headquarters to come and speak to congregations whose ministers have resigned or can no longer carry on with their duties. Sometimes, as I'm trying to convey the dharma to some sleepy audience, I'll look out and notice a particular man or woman; and one can tell they feel certain that this is the middle, or even just the beginning of life. They take it for granted that they'll have long lives and are hoping I'll conclude my talk quickly so they might resume their socializing. Then, as chance would have it, that same person will be on their way home from the temple, but before they can complete their journey home something unforeseen happens. Within a few days I'm back at that same temple to lead the funeral, and that confident person with their unsettled faith is laying in a casket up here. On such occasions I notice that people listen more carefully to what I have to say."

Part VI

Your Card-Sharking Teacher

The heretic said, "You're a knave."

Kanadeva said, "You're a free man."

— Yuanwu

Li Po And Blind Donkey

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Li Po had been reincarnated as a Buddhist Abbott, presiding over a mixed Buddhist-Taoist-Confucian lineage. I was new to the group and quickly realized their teachings were something other than what I'd bargained for. To add insult to injury, Li Po had gotten a hold of Linji's old sayings and thus took to calling me "Blind Donkey."

"Blind Donkey," he said one day, "do you know the One True Path?"

"No," I replied. "Such a concept leads to the error of fixed positions."

"Who taught you that crap?" asked Li Po. "Don't tell me the relativistic blather of our times has infected your soul too."

"Again, I have to take exception to your terminology," I stated deferentially. "Our faith does not teach the existence of a permanent soul."

"Silence!" Li Po shouted. "I shall give you two infallible directives. You are to follow them unquestioningly."

"But . . ." I said, trying to remind him that the blind following of authority is also contrary to the very sayings of Buddha himself.

"Silence!" Li Po shouted again. "Directive Number One! You are to sit at the writing table for two hours a day, gulping down small cups of plum wine in rapid succession."

"But we are never to take intoxicants and . . ." I tried to protest.

"Silence!" Li Po shouted again. "Directive Number Two! When the combined intoxicants of poetry from the gods and wine from the earth has lifted you into a state of divine frenzy, you are to stumble out to the koi pond at the center of town. There you shall behold the moon and the stars in a state of incomparable ecstasy. Then you shall stagger about the taverns singing loudly and out-of-tune. And when a villager questions you, you shall shout, 'Repent!'"

I interrupted more firmly this time. "Now I have two things to say. Firstly, there are no gods in our religion and secondly, I don't see what advantage I would gain by playing the part of the village fool."

Li Po allowed this interruption, but continued on as though he'd not heard my objections. "After you have sufficiently discredited yourself and brought a hearty helping of shame upon your egotistical, aristocratic family, then, and only then, will I trust you with the deeper truths."

"Shall I abandon my vows of chastity too?" I said with a sarcastic impatience. "No!" said Li Po, "but not because there's anything wrong with sex. I command you to remain chaste for one reason, and one reason only. Any romance you found yourself in would be spiritually catastrophic."

"And why is that?" I asked disconcertedly.

"A blind donkey like you in such circumstances," replied Li Po, "would end up rushing about like an errand boy servilely attempting to appease his wrathful employer. Indeed, any woman with grit would control you like a puppeteer."

I felt at bit of pride well up in me, but suppressed the urge to display my ego. Instead I asked about the matter of poetry: "Sir," I said in a worried tone, "I have not written any poetry since I was a small boy in school. What methods should I employ when embarking on such a task?"

Li Po replied:

You will strike like lightening!

Hold nothing back!

Be filled at last!

As directed, I began the process of pretending to become a merry drunkard, making a most exquisite idiot of myself on a nightly basis in front of all the villagers. In spite of the fact that I never touched a woman during these episodes, I became the most adored love poet in the province. As Li Po would have predicted, my family was so embarrassed by the whole affair that they straightaway disowned me. (Much to my surprise, nothing but joy followed the loss of my family. The absence of their judgmental stares and hatefully cold silences seemed to open me up to a whole new way of feeling about myself.) The plum wine I was supposed to be drinking was actually just dark grape juice, but Li Po never detected my betrayal. I hadn't the nerve to tell him I'd never enjoyed the taste of wine at all.

Limitless Compassion

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The Master's highest-ranking monk came into the temple study. The Master looked up and said, "Tell me plainly, who are you?"

"Why, I'm a tragic, subservient lackey clinging to the six dusts, doomed to suffer a thousand rebirths as a wounded dog," replied the monk as he put his hand on the Master's shoulder and pushed his face close.

The Master walked over to a window and gazed out at the lush valley below. He saw a young deer bolting through a clearing.

"My friend," the Master said with his back still turned toward the monk, "you're going to have to get your things packed. I'm transferring you to the temple in Long River Province."

"But that's two-hundred miles away," protested the monk.

"Precisely," said the Master turning to look straight at the monk. "You've become too darn smart for me now. If I don't get rid of you soon, I'll end up being number two around here."

"Are you saying," inquired the monk, "that you could not endure having to be my pupil?"

"No," replied the Master. "I could bear to endure the humiliation, but you, my son, could not bear to watch it."

The monk's face beamed with irony and contempt. "Is this what people mean when they talk about limitless compassion?"

"Not at all," said the Master. "Limitless compassion hurts way more than this."

The Master's Ambivalence

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"Master, you frequently lambaste the scriptures. Are we to infer from this that the scriptures are wrong?"

"No, the scriptures are perfect in every way."

"If that is so, can we conclude that those who challenge the doctrines set forth in scriptures have fallen into error?"

"No, the remarks of the critics are also perfect."

"If both the supporters and detractors of the scriptures are flawless, whom are we to believe?"

"Neither."

"Would it be fair to say that you've not made up your mind about this most critical matter?"

"You are correct. I have not made up my mind."

"Since you are manifestly in a state of confusion, how much longer do you expect people to continue studying your teachings?"

"They should remain students of mine until they become as confused as I am."

The Master's Koans

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"I had a real vision last night," announced the Master, "and it was not one of your frantic dreams caused by subconscious anxiety, nor was it a waking hallucination or a projection of my mind. It was the genuine appearance of the Living God of the Universe."

A Buddhist seminarian rose quickly to his feet and objected. "You're talking nonsense. The whole point of Buddhism is to be liberated from such silliness!"

Another student, in a lively but cynical way, stood up and said, in a patronizing tone, "Master, what exactly did the Living God of the Universe have to say to you last evening? And by the way, were you drinking that narcotic-laced tea one of our monks brought back from Afghanistan?"

"To answer your second question," quipped the Master rather defensively, "I did not imbibe in such frivolity last night before my vision. After all, I knew I'd have to get up early today and work. For your information, it is on Sunday nights that I get stoned. To answer your first question, the Living God of the Universe made two mysterious statements, and also asked two questions, neither of which I could answer. Perhaps one of you can help me solve the riddle."

"The Living God of the Universe said, 'I did not create the world. Can you please tell me who did?' And He also said, 'I do not control the world. Can you please tell me who does?'"

*

"About a week ago," recounted the Master, "a physicist came to chat with me about certain cosmic questions. In the course of our discussions, he had an opportunity to share with me his current mythology regarding the origins of the Universe. He told a tale in which all of the galaxies, by his reckoning, several hundred billion of them, were condensed into the size of a single pinpoint. The pinpoint then exploded outward and now stretches hundreds of billions of light years across. His question about the myth was this, 'Before the Big Bang created the Cosmos, what sound echoed through the void?'"

*

"Another scientist," said the Master, "had come to chat with me the week before last. He shared with me the scientific scriptures which he currently believes in. According to his doctrine, time and space do not exist independently, but are a property of matter itself. The Universe, as he described it, is slowly dispersing all of its energy out into the limitless darkness. At some point, his texts tell him, all of the matter and all of the energy contained in the universe will be spent and the atomic structures themselves will unravel into the vast nothingness. This seems to parallel the great Cosmic Death related in the early Hindu scriptures, a thing which had always puzzled me. Since I was aware of the fact that he also dabbled in Buddhism, I asked him, 'When all of time and space have vanished, what will be the mission of the Bodhisattvas?'"

A Meeting With The Creator

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The new student complained to the Master, "When people pressed the Buddha for an answer about the origins of the world, he picked up a flower and smiled. But I find this insufficient. Either the Buddha was hiding the truth from us or he wasn't as knowledgeable as he claimed to be. Do you have any insight on the origins of the world, or will you evade the question by pretending to have an unspeakable understanding of the matter?"

"All right!" snapped the Master. "This card has the address of an office building downtown. I'll call ahead and let them know you're coming. I think they can give you a taste of what you're looking for. And when you see the lobby attendant, tell him he still owes me forty bucks."

*

"Hi, you must be the doorman."

"Ah, a man of profound clarity."

"My Teacher says you owe him forty dollars. Is that true?"

"You tell your card-sharking Teacher he ain't gettin' a cent out of me."

"I notice little sparks coming off of your head and hands when you talk. What's up with that?"

"Let's just say I'm a type-A personality."

"I see you're reading the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. That's a classic."

"Since he's working here now, they're making me read this. I'm supposed to know a little about all the tenants in the building."

"How do you like it so far?"

"I'm not too impressed."

"Why not?"

"I've been at this job for a few million years, but the book hardly mentions me."

"And just what is your job title?"

"Indra, King of Heaven."

"Wow! That's impressive!"

"Not as impressive as you think."

"Are you saying that because they have you working a guard desk?"

"The job is all politics and the pay isn't what it used to be."

"What do you do if someone tries to sneak past you without checking in first?"

"I toss a few thunder bolts at them."

"Can't you get arrested for that?"

"Let's just say the cops are reluctant to go after someone who's throwing lightning around."

*

"Hello, I'm the new student. Sensei sent me over here."

"Yes, I was told you would be coming. Did you have any problems with the doorman?"

"He's a little touchy, but I think I managed to stay on his good side."

"I've tried to have him replaced, but I think he's got a lot of connections, being King of Heaven and all."

"I think he just needs a raise and a couple weeks of vacation."

"That's not as easy to arrange as it sounds."

"It's not?"

"It may seem surprising, but the bad economy affects us too."

"You know why I'm here, don't you?"

"Yes, my Son. I'm told you've become perplexed over the matter of creation."

"What's your take on the subject?"

"I only have a partial answer for you."

"A partial answer is better than what I've got now."

"Then I suppose it's my duty to tell you that this whole crazy world is all the doing of My Mad Mother Kali?"

*

The new student knocked on Kali's office door. She called him in. Her voice sounded a bit strained.

Kali was wearing a slender robe made of glowing shards of flame. Her face was deep black and Her eyes were dark blue. Her tongue, which had been hanging out of Her mouth, was a brilliant red. Along Her waistband were tucked a series of gold daggers. A garland of miniaturized human skulls hung from Her neck.

She was flustered. She had been trying to compose a love letter to Shiva, but the poetic sense was somehow lacking. She usually blocked Her thoughts from the view of visitors, but Her frustration made Her a bit absent-minded. This caused the new student to see a projected imagine in his mind, they very thoughts of Kali Herself. He saw Kali tearing him open and consuming his vital organs. She was doing this with a tender and loving smile on Her face.

She turned to the new student, breathed fire towards him and said, "Dammit! To Hell with romance anyway!"

She stared into the new student's eyes with a lustful anger. Then she caught herself.

"Oh goodness, I'm sorry," she stammered. "I thought I'd be done with this thing before you got here. I don't know why Shiva charms me so. He's so fickle. And I never know what to call Him. He has a thousand names."

*

Kali brought the new student into Her elegantly-furnished dining room. They were served snacks and beverages and were waited on most meticulously by an army of young, naked, muscular men with their genitals tied up in chains.

"Do You require celibacy of all Your followers?"

"Heavens, no! These men are observing absolute chastity for purely selfish reasons."

"They are?"

"They find they can love Me with their whole hearts, without a trace of jealousy or possessiveness, once they discard the illusion of sex. One of these characters used to be a Philosophy Professor. He tells Me all the boys love Me with a 'Pure Aesthetic.' At first I thought he was being sarcastic and I burnt him to a cinder. When I found out he was actually serious, I restored his body to its prior form. You know what he says to Me afterwards? He says, 'Mother, the whole time you were incinerating me, I was in absolute ecstasy.'"

"That sounds pretty kinky."

"Would you like to join My entourage?"

"No thanks. I'm pretty committed to this Zen thing, for now."

"So your Master tells Me."

*

Realizing She'd been romantically rejected, Kali sneered at the new student for a second and then looked at the floor dejectedly. But She quickly recovered from the new student's refusal of Eternal Devotion.

"What was your question?" She asked.

"Are You the Creator of the World?" replied the new student.

"Sure, why not?" said Kali, rolling Her eyes ironically.

"Well," continued the new student, "how and why did you do it?"

The Divine Mother became a little apprehensive and self-conscious.

"Ramakrishna told you, didn't he," ventured Kali with an insecure and worried expression, "that I'm a little bit . . ."

". . . nuts," said the new student, assertively completing Her sentence. "He calls You 'My Mad Mother Kali.'"

"He's right, you know. I'm not being coy. There's a reason I'm having trouble answering the how and why of creation."

The new student had a flash of insight. He realized why the Master had sent him there. If anyone had tried to explain this state of affairs to him, he would have never believed it, not without seeing it with his own eyes.

"Tell me something, Mother, are You embarrassed about the specific diagnosis that applies to You?"

Kali bit her lip in sorrow and said nothing.

The new student leaned forward solicitously and held Kali's hand, which took some doing because the fingertips were all cobra heads, and asked tenderly, "Are you bipolar?"

Kali nodded in a guilty way, and a tear ran down her cheek.

"And manic-depressives usually have severe memory disorders, don't they?" added the new student confidently.

"How and why I created the world?" said the Divine Mother as She wept. "I don't remember a damn thing about it!"

*

The conversation took on a lighter tone after Kali's confession. During their discussion, a black panther entered the room and began circling anxiously around Kali's chair, licking his chops. The new student had begun to ask about the cat which was mewing like a small kitten, when the Divine Mother suddenly stood up and whispered playfully, "Come over here. I want to show you a little something."

Kali opened a drawer in an antique dresser and pulled out a few spheres the size of ping-pong balls. The panther began brushing up against Kali's legs, pacing back and forth in nervous anticipation, staring up at the small spheres, drooling with hunger.

"Stop begging in front of the guests!" scolded Kali. "You'll get your treats later."

The panther gave a half snarl and stalked lithely from the room.

"Have you ever," said the Divine Mother as she turned excitedly to the new student, "held an entire planet in the palm of your hand?"

"Never," said the new student with intimate wonder.

"Here. Try it," insisted Kali.

"Wow!" exclaimed the new student, taking some of the spheres into his hands. "You can feel the presence of billions of sentient beings on each one of them."

Kali beamed with pride as she fondled a few of the spheres in her hands.

"How long do you keep them in those drawers?" asked the student with a concerned look.

"Oh, not long," replied Kali a bit whimsically, "a few billion years or so."

"What do you do with them after that?" inquired the student with a furrowed brow.

Before the Divine Mother could answer, the panther let out an angry roar from the other room. They both looked up in alarm.

"Let's talk about that later," said Kali as she clumsily gathered the spheres into the drawer and slammed it shut.

*

The Master was pacing back and forth like a worried parent whose teenage child had stayed out too late.

Little Bikhu became annoyed and said, "Sensei, get a grip on yourself. Your fidgeting is driving everyone to distraction."

"Yes, yes. Sorry, sorry," conceded the Master.

Just then the front gate clicked open. Sensei rushed to his meditation cushion and pretended to be absorbed in contemplation. His pose was perfect when the new student made his way inside.

Little Bikhu jabbed at the Master, who had already assumed his trademark expression of pompous serenity. "You big phony," taunted Little Bikhu.

The Master, in no mood for such humor at his expense, pointed to the door leading to the monk's residential quarters and said, "Out."

*

The new student strode in confidently, took a cushion and sat across from the Master.

"So I saw your buddies downtown," started the student with a look of feigned disapproval.

"Did Kali try to get you to be one of Her servant boys?" teased the Master.

"I'm all for Eternal Devotion," replied the new student with a grin, "but I can't get with the chains on the genitals thing."

"All the same, She's a real sweetie," said the Master sentimentally.

"Right," said the new student, "feeding planets full of people to her cat for after-dinner treats?"

"Do you always have to be so critical?" replied the Master as he stuck out his tongue.

"Sensei," said the new student, suddenly with a child-like sincerity, "when can I see her again?"

"It's time for you to lay down and get some rest," concluded the Master as he rose from his cushion and turned away coldly.

*

The new student was tossing and turning in bed. It was a hot summer night. He was having trouble getting comfortable. He knew his Master would never let him visit Kali again. He was always saying, "Do not cling to supernatural phenomena and paranormal experiences." The new student knew the building downtown would disappear if he tried to return to it without the Master's permission. That broke his heart because he was reeling from an unexpected bout of love-sickness. He felt nauseous and wanted to burst out sobbing, but he held back because the monks in the adjacent cells were sure to make a mockery of it the next morning.

He didn't know how or when he fell asleep, but he found himself dreaming of Mother Kali.

"Your Master," began Kali, "said I could come and see you in your dreams every few years, if you're well-behaved."

The new student said with a quivering voice, "I don't know how I'm going to live without You."

"Don't you waste your time grieving over Me, buster," She said with a flirty firmness. "We'll be together soon enough."

"Are you saying that just to patronize me?" asked the new student dejectedly.

Kali's eyes burned with awesome power. She pulled her garland of skulls forward, revealing a gap in the strand. "You look here!" She said with an affectionate impatience. "Do you see this space? It's reserved for you, for Eternity. And this necklace won't be complete until I fill that space with your sweet little head."

*

The next morning, after breakfast, the new student came up to the Master as he was assigning daily chores to the monks: "That was quite a day I had yesterday, wouldn't you say?" asked the new student probingly.

"To me it seemed just like any other day," replied the Master, now denying resolutely that anything out of the ordinary had transpired.

"But what about the visit with the Divine Mother? You arranged it all yourself, and now you're implying that nothing happened?" protested the student.

"Sleep deprivation will do that sometimes. You can't tell when you're awake and when you're dreaming. You need to stay off the coffee and get to bed a little earlier," insisted the Master offhandedly.

"So you're saying Kali isn't real?" pressed the new student.

"I'm saying you need to get into your overalls and start painting that back fence," declared the Master. "The Bishop arrives tomorrow, and I want this place looking sharp."

Mocha Bodhisattva

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"Sensei, why did you stop working at the temple?"

"Because the essence of the Patriarchs and Bodhisattvas is right here in this coffee shop."

"So you think you can render as much service to the world serving mochas and lattes as you did teaching Zen at the temple?"

"Perhaps more."

"You stopped by the temple last week. Why?"

"Just to visit a few old friends."

"How come you only stayed fifteen minutes?"

"I wanted to make sure I didn't catch anything."

"Were you worried about the flu that was going around?"

"No, I was afraid the doctrines might be contagious."

"I notice you have a statue of Buddha in the corner. Do you ever bow to it?"

"No."

"Don't you respect the Buddhas?"

"They never asked for my respect."

"Then why do you have statues of Buddha?"

"Buddhas are welcome here anytime, just so long as they don't expect free coffee."

"Do you respect any authority at all?"

"Could you give me an example of an authority figure?"

"What about the Dalai Lama?"

"It would depend on how well he operates an espresso machine."

"You used to meditate, do yoga, chant sutras and read Philosophy. Have you given all that up?"

"Whenever there's time to spare, I pull out the old zafu and count some breaths."

"How often is that?"

"Oh, about once a week, unless the laundry's piled up."

"Would you say you're living a completely worldly life?"

"Which world are you talking about?"

"This one."

"There is no doubt I'm living a life in this world."

"Are you considering coming back to the monastery some day?"

"If they ever turn it into an apartment building, I might be willing to rent a room there."

"A Christian told me we must all face a judgment one day in which our eternal fate will be decided. Do you think that's true?"

"We are facing the judgment right now, and this is our eternal fate."

"Are you saying Heaven and Hell are here on Earth?"

"No, only Earth is on Earth."

"Do you believe in the gods?"

"Absolutely."

"Which god do you serve."

"The customer waiting in line behind you."

A New Student

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A new student approached Sensei and sought to express his zeal for the Dharma.

"Master, where will the accumulated wisdom of the sages lead true seekers of The Way?"

"Regretfully," replied the Master with a stern and unforgiving face, "it will lead them to a cold, dark, solitary grave."

The student, wanting to show some grit, did not flinch, but posed another question.

"Suppose we then reject the teachings of the Masters and the doctrines of the scholars and seek, through the vigilant practice of Za Zen, to transcend mere words and attain The Unconditioned Absolute?"

"Regretfully," replied the Master with an icy and fatalistic scowl, "it will lead us to a cold, dark, solitary grave."

The student, having been warned of the Master's tendency to turn away new students by means of disturbing tests, was not dissuaded. Full of a gleeful, competitive spirit, he continued the dialogue.

"Suppose we abandon all practices and all doctrines and join the worldly people in their debauchery?"

"We might finally enjoy ourselves," replied the Master with a devious poker face.

"Then why haven't you done just that?" pressed the new student with an ambitious smirk.

"Oh, I suppose," said the Master with a weary sigh, "it's all due to my spiritual pretensions."

"Spiritual pretensions?" said the new student. "I'm told by your monks that you're never reticent to admit your own flaws. How can that be passed off as some pretension?"

Totally flustered, and seeing not a single device had worked on this novice, Sensei got up and tossed his meditation cushion at the young man and stomped off to his room to pout.

Little Bikhu came in to visit him later.

Noticing that the Master was in a funk, he inquired, "Sensei, you don't seem like yourself today. What's the problem?"

"Little Bikhu," asked the Master in a scolding whisper, "have you been briefing the novices on all my techniques?"

"Sure have," replied Little Bikhu with a friendly confidence.

"Why would you do that?" asked the Master.

"All the older monks are tired of hearing the same lines from you every time a new student comes in. If this Zen thing is for real, and if you're really alive, then you should jump at the chance to develop some new material."

"Couldn't you give an old shaved-head a little break once in a while?" whined the Master.

"Yeah," replied Little Bikhu with a bickering sneer, "like you ever give us a break."

The Master, stormed off in a huff and tucked himself into one of the old cells that had fallen into disuse. But to his great misfortune, the new student found him there.

"So," teased the new student, "is this what the great Masters do? Do they just pout when things don't go their way?"

The Master looked up and said in pleading earnestness, "For the life of me, I don't know how I ended up in this job."

Not Showing The Way

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A student inquired, "If the Way cannot be spoken, how you will transmit it?"

"By showing it to you," replied the Master.

"How do you propose to show it without speaking it?" pressed the student.

"I will show it by Not-Showing it," proclaimed the Master.

"And when will this Not-Showing of the way begin?" said the student

The Master scratched his head and said, "I am Not-Showing it to you now."

The Noble Eightfold Path

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After the Master passed away, we found these notes he had made regarding the Noble Eightfold Path. They appear to be part of a dharma talk he was planning to give the monks.

Right View:

Remember, dear little ones, you'll be stuck with me for a long time, so stay on my good side or learn to dodge the stick.

Right Thought:

Oh virtuous practitioners of the Way, think of how happy you'll be when you've been here long enough to start ordering the novices around.

Right Speech:

Blessed Bikhus, if you say things behind my back, make sure I don't overhear you or you'll be using a brick for a pillow.

Right Action:

I suspect, my future Bodhisattvas, that you became monks because you couldn't get any action.

Right Livelihood:

Well, Sons of The Clear Light, if you've got to be a parasite, you've come to the right place.

Right Effort:

I will make every effort to see that funds are raised to get some decent heating and air conditioning in this place.

Right Mindfulness:

I am continually mindful, you seekers of the truth, of how desperately depleted our supply of sake has become.

Right Concentration:

I am concentrating deeply, Eternal Buddhas, on how I might get my next vacation paid for without raiding the temple treasury again.

Part VII

No-Doctrine Buddha

"Accustomed to scouring the oceans fishing for whales,

I regret to find instead a frog crawling in the mud.

— Fenxue

Hell

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A World Religions student approached the dreaded Fujikami after a Dharma talk and said, "The Christians claim that non-believers will go to Hell. What is your reaction to this?"

The dreaded Fujikami snorted a puff of air through his nostrils as though he were a perturbed buffalo.

"Aren't you sometimes frightened," asked the World Religions student, "that they may be correct?"

"I am not the least bit impressed," grunted the dreaded Fujikami.

"Are you saying you don't believe in Hell?" inquired the World Religions student.

"The Christians," replied the dreaded Fujikami, "claim that only after one's death will one be sent to Hell. Were they to visit me now, I would send them to Hell this very instant!"

The Fundamental Virtue

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Little Bikhu and Sensei were walking through a rock garden in the desert. They came upon a polished boulder that weighed several tons.

Little Bikhu turned to Sensei and said, "Sir, what is the fundamental virtue?"

Sensei looked at him and said, "You must pulverize that boulder using only the power of your mind."

"Don't be silly," retorted Little Bikhu. "That's impossible."

"All right then," said Sensei, "shout so ferociously that the boulder splits in half."

"Such a thing has never been done in all of human history," protested Little Bikhu.

"That's the problem," concluded Sensei, "you think you know human history."

An Unhappily-Married Woman

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Sister Dharmastream had been visited every week, for several months, by an unhappily-married woman who complained, in mind-numbing detail, about every aspect of her husband's alleged flaws.

At one point she said ruefully, "It's a shame you're feeling so badly, because at this moment a new Buddha is being born."

"Really?" said the woman, "I've not seen nor heard anything about it."

"Okay," replied Sister Dharmastream, "then a blind and deaf Buddha has just come into the world."

Bodhidharma's Other Trip To China

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As Bodhidharma was sailing on a boat from India to China, his brow wrinkled a bit. What would the Chinese think of him? He didn't know. How would he convey the Unspeakable without ruining it? He hadn't a clue.

He began to look about the ship he'd hired. There were monks and sailors and all the materials required to make this long journey. He flushed with embarrassment. He was having a hard time justifying this whole adventure. On what grounds had he dragged all of these good people from their homes to risk their lives? How would the political and spiritual leaders of China receive such a taciturn fellow?

As he turned these matters over in his mind without hope of resolution, one of the crew members pointed to the horizon. Off in the distance, one could see that some sort of disturbance in the water was beginning to send dangerously large waves their way. Everyone except Bodhidharma knelt in prayer.

Soon thirty-foot swells were tossing their ship about like small toy. The odds of survival seemed remote. In the back of his mind, Bodhidharma was a bit relieved that his time on earth might soon end. He felt he owed the people more than he could give them. He struggled to communicate the essence of his experience, but had deep reservations about his ability to do so. Frankly, he'd hoped the pressures of this voyage might stir him to speak again. But now the whole scheme seemed ill-conceived from the start.

*

From the horizon arose a whirling tornado a hundred miles across, towering up to the edge of space. The waterspout contained countless trillions of drops of water, and in each drop were hundreds of oceans covered with dozens of hurricanes, and in they eye of each hurricane were a million continents the size of Asia.

Suddenly, darkness fell. Shooting stars crisscrossed the sky in flaming, radiant, rainbow-colored fury.

The Hindu Pantheon encircled the boat, each proclaiming the universes they presided over and the countless beings they'd created. Vishnu, the very Soul of the Universe, and Brahma, the Immense Being and Creator of the Cosmos, and Shiva, the very Birth and Destruction and Extinction of All Phenomena, descended from their respective celestial castles on jade platforms the size of cities. Approaching the ship with their retinue of hundreds of thousands of gods behind them, they each proclaimed their glories, bowed to Bodhidharma, and disappeared without a trace.

*

A translucent gold Buddha emerged from the chaotic waters. One of his hands came beneath the boat and lifted it into the sky. The Buddha was so large that his face extended beyond the moon.

"Who are you?" asked Bodhidharma in astonished joy.

"From beginningless time I have come," responded the incomprehensible being. "None can praise me, and none can revile me, for I am void of all content and without permanent existence or permanent non-existence. I am The Buddha of No-Doctrine. Through my grace, men forget their faiths and see the vows of all Bodhisattvas as so much bird chatter. And they come to see the cheeping of a sparrow as the culmination of ten thousand volumes of sutras."

"Why have you appeared before us today, good Sir?" inquired Bodhidharma.

"To encourage you to speak the truth when you arrive in China," replied The Buddha of No-Doctrine. "I perceived the contents of your mind and saw that you were tempted to resort to the quoting of scriptures, to the outlining of structural teachings and the listing of The Sixty-Four Thousand Paths. But you are commanded not to do this. You are to offer yourself only. You are to stand before the holy men and nobles of the capital silently radiating the very core of Suchness. You are enjoined not to speak the truth, but to be the truth. Through your visage, The Boundaryless Presence of The Non-Darkness, and The Venerable Blessings of The Non-Luminescence, will pour through the impermanent personages in your audience like the Ganges overflowing."

"Oh, Buddha of No Doctrine," proclaimed Bodhidharma, "this is what I had known I should do, but for a moment I was in doubt."

"Bodhidharma, trust in the Gateless Gate," said The Buddha of No-Doctrine, "even if the whole world should see you as a mute fool and cast you into the wilderness to be devoured by wild animals. Go and confound them with all the compassion of the bodhisattvas from myriad millennia before you. In you, the world will see The Non-Substantiality of The Ocean of Birth and Death and The Wholeness of The Ocean of Non-Birth and Non-Death. As you depart the capital, kings and beggars will seek to touch the edges of your sandal prints."

*

When Bodhidharma entered the capital, he proceeded up the main thoroughfare toward the royal palace and the high temple. As he walked, he was joined by soldiers on horseback. From side streets came dignitaries and administrators who walked beside him. Groups of children in formal attire emerged from various dwellings and threw flowers beneath his feet.

When Bodhidharma was received at the palace, he was poker-faced and yet full of life and raging with the fire of He Who Thus Comes. His translator and the ship's crew mingled with all who attended the royal court. Everyone present partook of a most lavish dinner and enjoyed the talented entertainers who came to liven up the occasion. The King's people and Bodhidharma's companions were reveling in the brisk tempo of the reception.

Bodhidharma rose, signaling his translator to hurry to his side. They came up to the raised platform on which the King and a few of his favorite guests were seated. Bodhidharma stared at the King, attempting to convey the Heart of the Buddha through his compassionate face, which beamed intensely and resolutely. At first the King ignored this irregularity, but then Bodhidharma took his staff and banged the wooden platform loudly. The room froze in silence, not knowing what dangers this insolence might bring upon them all.

Again Bodhidharma stared straight into the face of the King, generously pouring out, through no words, The Unutterable Absolute from The Realm of the Patriarchs. The King grasped that something critical was happening, but could not seize the moment. He stared imploringly back at his guest, presuming some accidental offense had caused this defiance of royal protocol. Seeing the King had not yet realized the Great Matter, Bodhidharma nodded to his translator.

After a long pause in which he almost lost his nerve entirely, the translator raised his voice to speak.

"Oh Noble King of the Southern Province," said the translator in a quivering and unsteady tone. "The one before you, a Man of No Position, has asked me to relay the message he received from The Buddha of No-Doctrine who manifested himself in the Indian Ocean to the glory of all gods, sages, saviors, prophets, martyrs and common sentient beings who now migrate from life to life, and from birth to birth, without The Lamp of The Purest Wisdom."

The crowd in the room erupted into a chorus of groaning, laughter and hisses. Bodhidharma again banged the wooden platform twice. A hush fell over the room again. The translator felt certain he and his master would be arrested and face some terrible end. The king and his close friends stood stunned, looking about the room with searching eyes. The royal guard began to surge forward with swords and lances drawn. The King motioned for the guards to halt. He whispered to the translator with earnest intensity, "For the life of me, I cannot tell what your Master is trying to say. What's going on here?"

The translator reached out with one arm and put it gently on the King's shoulder. The King looked down at his shoulder with a dignified disconcertedness. The guards, hardly able to restrain themselves, lurched forward but dared not lay hands on the guests until the King produced a definitive signal.

"Behold, Most Noble and Glorious Ruler," replied the translator as he gestured toward Bodhidharma, "The Faceless Face of he who braved two thousand miles of storms and the full fury of the waters of chaos to bring you The Centerless, Timeless Transmission of The Great Mind Vehicle of The Ancient Adepts!"

The King, in a state of alarm, turned in desperate confusion to see the Mountain of Lions that was the Temporal Form of Bodhidharma. Indeed, his silent roar reached from that palace in China to The Heavenly Abode of Indra.

As the King's eyes locked on Bodhidharma's, the translator cupped his hand and whispered into the King's ear, 'No Doctrine. No Practice. No Turning from the Path.'"

Bodhidharma slammed his stick upon the wooden platform and shouted, "Now!" then abruptly turned away and marched quickly out of the hall and back to the ship."

*

The King turned to the translator and said, "Please tell your Master that I shall be forever grateful for the gift he has given us."

The translator, glad to be alive, caught his breath and replied, "Certainly."

"If you don't mind my asking," added the King, "what is it like to work for a man like that?"

The translator replied, "Were steady employment not so hard to come by in our part of India, I surely would have quit my job by now."

Trying To Date Sister Dharmastream

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"I'd like to go out with you sometime."

"That's not gonna' happen."

"What sort of man are you looking for?"

"Certainly not the kind of old, bald, flabby pauper sitting in front of me now."

"Could you be more specific?"

"I prefer hunky, young professionals with six-figure salaries."

"That seems rather shallow."

"And isn't it shallow of you to ask me out when I'm the only one in the temple working part time as a model? That chubby gal who leads the chants in the morning service has been in love with you for three years now. Why haven't you asked her out?"

"Okay, so I'm a bit vapid. But you're our Buddhist instructor, so I expected you to have a deeper perspective."

"Surprise, surprise."

"So you've not transcended the world at all?"

"Transcended the world? I've not even transcended the bad cooking around here."

"Has any Zen Master transcended the world?"

"Try stealing their parking space and you'll find out."

Raging Monotheist Meets The Self-Denier

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Sensei had somehow managed to maintain a friendship with Raging Monotheist. Raging Monotheist would always make the point that Sensei would burn in Hell forever because his doctrines were not monotheistic.

"This place you call Hell couldn't be so very bad," protested Sensei. When I was in Kyoto, we studied under the dreaded Master Fujikami. I recall a very difficult part of our training in which the monk sitting next to me fell over dead. Miraculously, the doctors were able to get his heart beating again."

"He later told us of his near-death experience: 'I appeared before King Yama who forced me to bathe in pools of acid. I wandered from stench-filled pit to burning furnace without relief. The whole time maggots were eating my face.'"

"'How did your tenure in Hell compare to studying under Master Fujikami?' asked a somewhat reserved monk from the back of the room."

"'Now that I have returned to the land of the living and must resume my studies under Master Fujikami,' he replied, 'I feel as though my time in Hell was like a vacation.'"

*

Sensei's flippant outlook frustrated Raging Monotheist to no end. Still, they doggedly maintained their dialogue. People were astonished that men of such divergent views could have such a warm personal chemistry.

From time to time Raging Monotheist would put his arm around Sensei's shoulder and say, "If the Lord ever grants people in Hell visitation rights, I promise I'll come down from Heaven to see you as often as possible. Maybe they'll let me bring you a beer or something."

*

One day Raging Monotheist was sharing his view that for the world to be ruled properly, all non-monotheists would have to be tortured or executed in extremely painful ways.

Again Sensei flustered Raging Monotheist by asking, "But what if a person were a masochist, or suicidal, then what kind of punishment would that be?"

Before Raging Monotheist could reply to Sensei's inquiry, The Self-Denier, the widely-known Supreme Ascetic of The Zen Jinkaku Yokuse, (loosely translated as The Total Personality Suppression Sect), appeared at the threshold.

"Great to see you!" said Sensei. "Come on in! I don't think you've had a chance to meet Raging Monotheist yet. Sit down and share your doctrinal constructs with us. We seem to be going around in circles and need some fresh input."

"Surely," replied The Self-Denier," as he sat in a half-lotus posture on a thin cushion. "My current theory is that the whole purpose of spiritual practice is to arrive at a place where one's own desires are completely abandoned. The most noble aspiration is to consider only the needs of others."

"How timely of you to bring that up," said Sensei. "You see, Raging Monotheist was just sharing with me how all persons he regards as pagans, idol-worshippers and polytheists, would be, in a perfect world, tortured mercilessly and put to death in the most gruesome manner possible."

"I don't see how," responded The Self-Denier, "my doctrines could have anything to do with that sort of practice."

"I do," said Sensei. "Since you are not a monotheist, and Raging Monotheist believes in killing all non-monotheists, you could serve him selflessly by letting him torture and execute you. After all, he is totally convinced of his need to do this, and you seek to place his needs above your own."

"I will not be mocked in such a way," protested The Self-Denier as he stood up to leave.

"But wait." said Sensei. "It would make me happy if I could make fun of you some more; and since you should put my needs ahead of your own, it seems to me that you are obliged to endure a few hours of mockery."

The Self-Denier would have no more of Sensei's humor and continued walking away without looking back.

Sensei turned to Raging Monotheist for consolation and said, "How selfish of him to just leave like that. Now he's gone and spoiled my fun for the evening."

Raging Monotheist, feeling sorry for his friend, flashed his teeth and turned his steely eyes toward Sensei and said, "Don't feel bad, Sensei. I promise you, when my people are in charge, we'll take him out first."

Sensei's Koans

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"When the Buddha could not solve a problem in his life, who did he turn to for guidance?"

*

"How can we teach The Eternal Dharma, since it too is subject to The Law of Impermanence?"

*

"If two Buddhists belong to different sects with opposing views, how will they debate this matter without insisting that one kind of Emptiness is superior to another kind of Emptiness?"

*

"The Heart Sutra says there is nothing to be attained. If this is true, how did Kanon Bodhisattva transcend distress and suffering?"

*

"The Heart Sutra says there is no birth and no death. Since you have no origins and no extinction, what is it that you were seeking to be liberated from?"

One Great Path

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"How may I best follow The Eightfold Path?"

"By seeing it as One Great Path."

"How shall I follow The One Great Path?"

"By viewing it as no path at all."

"So first there are eight paths, then one, then none?"

"If I strike you eight times, you'd wish I'd only hit you once. If I strike you one time, you'd wish I'd never hit you at all."

Sins

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"Sensei, my sins are weighing heavily on my soul."

"Really? Can you point to where the burden is now resting?"

"Right here, in the middle of my chest."

"Would you then say that the soul is located in the chest?"

"The soul isn't a physical thing. It has no location."

"What do the sins in the soul look like?"

"The sins are invisible."

"You said the sins were weighing on your soul. Is that correct?"

"Right."

"About how much would you say the sins weigh?"

"Sins are spiritual, so they have no weight."

"How could a sin, with no weight and no form, weigh heavily on an invisible soul with no location?"

"You just have to accept that on faith."

"I'm trying, but you're not making it easy."

"I just want to be free from my sins."

"Are you saying that your sins are holding you captive?"

"Yes, very much so."

"Are your sins holding your body captive?"

"No, they're holding my mind captive."

"Ah, so your mind is captive, but your body is free to do whatever it wants?"

"My mind controls my body, and my body is held captive by my mind, and my mind is held captive by my sins."

"So these feelings arise due to the fact that your mind is trapped?"

"Yes."

"What is your mind trapped inside of?"

"It's not physically trapped inside anything. The mind is non-material."

"So there's an invisible fence, made of nothing, surrounding an invisible mind, made of nothing?"

"I can't say for sure. All I know is that I want out."

"Okay, but if we find some way to let your invisible mind out of the invisible fence of sins that surrounds it, then where will the mind go after that?"

"It won't go anywhere."

"If the mind has no particular place it wants to go, then why is it a misfortune that it remains where it is, behind the invisible fence?"

"It wants to go to other mental places, not geographical locations."

"Could you name one of those mental regions it wishes to travel to?"

"To a place of peace."

"Oh dear, I'm sorry to have to inform you that my mind already went to a place of peace; but as soon as it got there, an invisible fence went up and trapped it there. And guess what? Now it wants out."

Humility

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"Sensei, is it true that pride comes before a fall."

"Yes, and it's also true that humility comes before a fall."

"So it doesn't matter if we're proud or humble?"

"Not to me."

"People around me seem to be worried that I'm not humble enough."

"The only people more conceited than proud people are the people who worry that others aren't being humble enough. Those actually are the worst kind of people. Avoid them at all costs."

"People accuse me of always wanting to be the center of attention."

"Have they told you who they wish to take over as the center of attention after you relinquish your position?"

"No, they don't seem to really have a plan for that. They only seem to know that they don't want me to be the center of attention."

"So people would like you more if you were more humble?"

"Right, and I'm hoping if I get humble enough, they'll be so enamored with my humility that they'll praise my virtue."

"And what would happen if everyone got together to praise your humility?"

"Then I'd be the center of attention, but this time I'd get there the way the classy people do."

"So classy people also want to be the center of attention?"

"Right, but they're so well-liked for not trying to be the center of attention that they're rewarded by getting to be the center of attention."

"As a reward for all that humility?"

"Right."

"So then no one really minds other people being the center of attention?"

"Just so long as it's not me."

"Why is that?"

"I guess because I didn't try hard enough to be humble."

"So these other people tried hard to be humble?"

"They worried about it all the time."

"They were very worried about their own humility?"

"Yes, they were afraid that if they weren't humble enough, someone would criticize them for it."

"What happened when someone criticized these people for not being humble enough?"

"Their pride was hurt."

"Because they were very worried about their public image as humble people?"

"Right, because the whole point is not to actually be humble. The point is to get people to think you're humble so they'll like you and say good things about you."

"Because a man's reputation is everything?"

"Yes, so long as he pretends hard enough not to care about it."

Sensei's Fundamentalism

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A Buddhist seminary student stood up and said to Sensei, "You have stated that there is only one way to Salvation. Isn't it also true that the fundamentalists you make fun of also say there is only one way to Salvation? What is the difference between your type of fundamentalism and theirs?"

Sensei, bowed reverently to the assembly and replied, "The other fundamentalists not only claim that there is only one path, they also claim to know which path, out of the thousands before us, is the true one. I also say there is only one true road from among The 64,000 Doctrines, however I haven't the slightest idea which one it is."

Visualization

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"Master," asked a student, "do you ever practice visualization techniques during your meditations?"

"Yes," replied the Master, "I frequently do."

"Can you describe the techniques you use during your visualization exercises?" said the student.

"I sit in the traditional Za Zen posture," said the Master, "and concentrate on my breathing. With each inhalation, I visualize the entire Universe being created, sustained and destroyed. With every exhalation, I say to myself, "Nothing of the sort ever happened."

Some Thoughts On The Trinity

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Fu Wo was presiding over the rotating chairmanship of the City Ecumenical Council. A Fundamentalist Preacher, a Vedanta Guru, an Orthodox Rabbi, a Zen Buddhist Priest, and Fu Wo, a Taoist Adept, were all seated around a conference table. The agenda for the day was discussed briefly, and then the conversation became somewhat casual.

The Fundamentalist Preacher was feeling very haughty that day and appeared to have decided that the presence of the others was little more than an annoyance. During their last meeting the Fundamentalist Preacher had outrightly attempted to convert everyone present, but the group was uncooperative. The whole meeting ended with an outing to a pizza parlor where the others took turns playing arcade games and gulping down beers. The Fundamentalist Preacher was disgusted with the whole thing.

Sensing he had an opening, the Fundamentalist Preacher again began making sectarian theological points and accusing the others of spiritual insincerity. The Orthodox Rabbi, who was a master at confounding Christians, was up to some mischief of his own.

"Tell me, Sir," said the Rabbi, "How are we to understand the mystery of the Trinity?"

Exasperated with this pedestrian question, the Fundamentalist Preacher heaved out a heavy sigh and said, "The Blessed Trinity, if you don't know by now, is the very structure of the Godhead, three separate Divine Persons in one God."

The Vedanta Guru said, "Great, we too believe in a trinity of three gods: Vishnu, Shiva and Brahmá."

"No!" the Fundamentalist Preacher snapped. "It's not three gods. It's one God, but three separate Persons."

The Zen Buddhist Priest asked earnestly, "Then are we to believe there are three thrones in heaven?"

"No!" insisted the Fundamentalist Preacher, "one throne and one throne only!"

The Rabbi pondered, "Hmm, then which of the Three would get to sit on it?"

"Only Jesus. The Father and the Holy Spirit cannot be seen by us," replied the Fundamentalist Preacher.

"I'll be honest with you all," noted Fu Wo, "I can't see any of these fellows you're talking about."

"Wait! Then who was on throne when Jesus came to Earth?" wondered the Rabbi. "Or was the throne empty, or did the Father get to sit on it a while when Jesus was on Earth?"

"So when Jesus was dead then God was dead?" pressed the Vedanta Guru.

"No! The Father and the Spirit were still alive!" shouted the Fundamentalist Preacher.

The Vedanta Guru was nonplused. "So God was one-third dead?"

"Hold on," interjected the Zen Buddhist Priest, "if Jesus was God, then that would make Him eternal. If He was eternal, how could he be, as the scriptures say, the only begotten Son of God?"

"You simpleton," groaned the Fundamentalist Preacher. "The Father is logically prior to the Son, but not temporally. In terms of time, the Son is co-eternal with the Father."

"Then where was the Holy Spirit all this time?" asked Fu Wo.

The Vendanta Guru said, "Didn't It fly around in a dove's body?"

"That was only for Jesus' baptism, you fool," said the Fundamentalist Preacher, now losing his temper again.

"I don't get it," said Fu Wo disconcertedly. "If Jesus was God, why would He be baptized as though He had become converted to God, when he was God? And when the Holy Spirit isn't flying around like a dove, where does He reside?"

"Maybe there's three thrones," speculated the Vedanta Guru. "Perhaps each one has a throne of His own, but the rule might be that God is still God as long as one of the thrones is occupied."

The Rabbi inserted, "But the Father never left His throne."

"Yes he did," noted Fu Wo. "What about the time He appeared in the burning bush."

At that moment the administrative assistant came in and said, "I know! What about this? Since He's God, and we know He can already do shape-shifting, then maybe He could do a double-body thing where one of His bodies stays on the throne and the body-double of Himself does the burning bush speech."

The Rabbi began to visibly hold back a laugh. He had undone another Fundamentalist Preacher. The Fundamentalist Preacher slammed his fist down and said, "I will not have this blasphemy here!"

Fu Wo turned to the Fundamentalist Preacher and inquired in a very subservient tone, "Not here? Are there other places you would consider it?"

"No! No! Never! Why are you asking me such a thing?" shot back the Fundamentalist Christian.

Just then the Zen Buddhist Priest proclaimed, "I too just realized I believe in a Trinity! It consists of the past which has no substance, the future which has no reality, and the present moment which does not exist at all."

"But those are the doctrines of demons!" roared the Fundamentalist Christian.

There was a moment of silence after this outburst. Then, suddenly, to their great shock, Satan appeared in the room, surrounded by a thousand whirling, shrieking demons no larger than hummingbirds, circling about him in the air. The entire building shook. A terrible rumbling ensued and all the clerics dove for cover as fixtures cracked and furniture went flying.

After the tumult stopped, Satan shouted, "What do you know of the doctrines of demons! For your information: All the demons converted to Fundamentalism two thousand years ago. We are your allies, not your enemies. See you in Hell!"

Satan immediately vanished, leaving everyone astonished.

Fu Wo turned to the Fundamentalist Preacher, who was looking very worried, and said, "Don't worry, my friend. We won't kick you off the Council just for being a demon. In fact, most of the best theologians I've ever met were demons."

Part VIII

California Upscale Suburban Believer

If we observe them with the correct eye,

neither of the two great elders

knows where the road starts.

— Wumen

Heaven And Hell

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"Sensei, is there such a thing as Heaven and Hell?"

"I cannot say if there's a Heaven, but I'm certain there's a Hell."

"And what does one have to do to end up in Hell?"

"One need only claim one knows there's a Heaven."

Truly Devoted

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One day a local fortune teller happened to be walking by the back gate when she spotted Sensei standing there.

"Sensei!" she said energetically. "How's it going with that anti-doctrine business of yours?"

A bit ruffled, Sensei remarked with a snooty look, "Well, that's not a very flattering way to put it."

"Just teasing, Sensei," said the fortune teller. "By the way, I kept meaning to tell you how impressed I am with all of your students."

"Is that so?" replied Sensei with an enthusiastic smile. "And what did they do to earn your respect?"

"At the risk of being unprofessional, I'll confide to you that over the years every one of your pupils has consulted me on the matter of their deaths," said the fortune teller, looking around to make sure no one had overheard them.

"Really?" mused Sensei with a puzzled look on his face. "And what did you tell them?"

The fortune teller tilted her head and chuckled, "I told each and every one of them that in spite of a lifetime of spiritual practice, they would each face their end in the most pathetically cowardly and unenlightened way imaginable."

"Is that true?" whispered Sensei in alarm.

"How would I know?" conceded the fortune teller. "I just wanted to see what their reaction would be."

"Then why in the world are you impressed with them?" asked Sensei with a wrinkled brow.

"Because each of them is so devoted to this Zen practice of yours that they each told me they would continue on even if there never was any hope of enlightenment for them," replied the fortune teller. "Now that's true devotion."

Regarding The Diamond Sutra

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Fu War and his students were seated around a large table eating breakfast when a student looked up from his bowel and said, "What is the purport of the Diamond Sutra?"

Fu War replied, "Could someone please bring me a pencil and a sheet of paper?"

A few moments later a student arrived with a pencil and paper. Fu War delicately drew one small dot and handed it to the inquiring student.

The student gazed a while at the nearly blank page with one dot on it and complained, "So that's it?"

"Perhaps," said Fu War, "I was a bit hasty. Let me have the paper back."

The student handed Fu War the paper. Fu War erased the dot he had made and returned the paper to the student, concluding, "That should be about all of it."

Fujikami's Certification

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A student approached Fu War and said, "Sir, in your diaries you speak of the day you sent the Dreaded Fujikami on his way."

"There was nothing more he could learn from me," replied Fu War.

"You further noted in your writings that the Dreaded Fujikami had attained the State of The Vast Crystalline Determination," said the student.

"That's true," assented Fu War, "hence it was time for him to lead his own Sangha."

"When did you first suspect," inquired the student, "that he had, in your words, 'learned to bathe in The Boiling Cauldron of Birth and Death with Unfettered Leisure?'"

"It seemed clear," intimated Fu War, "when he rode into town during the New Year's Parade straddling the head of a rhinoceros."

"Finally you note, 'It was beyond all doubt that the Dreaded Fujikami had grasped The Fundamental Nature of The Iron-Fisted Eye of The Dharma Treasury.' How could you be certain of that?" pressed the student.

"It became obvious to me," replied Fu War, "when the Dreaded Fujikami pointed to me during a dharma talk and announced to the whole Sangha, 'This joker isn't qualified to clean your toilets.'"

Extinction

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A young man and an old man were talking.

The young man said, "I can never seem to quite attain this state of Extinction the Buddhists keep talking about."

The old man replied, "When you're my age, I promise you'll feel much closer to the goal."

The Shitty World

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Wa Da Fok appeared before The Old White Guy On A Throne.

The Old White Guy On A Throne said, "Congratulations, Wa Da Fok. You've have attained Mahaparinirvana. But before you enter permanently into Extinction, can you tell me why you undertook the arduous task of erasing billions of years of karma?"

Wa Da Fok replied: "It was all so that I might get enlightened."

"What," asked The Old White Guy On A Throne, "did you plan to do with your enlightenment once you got it?"

"That's easy," declared Wa Da Fok, "I intended to transcend the shitty world You created."

Chronic Victim

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Southern Fundamentalist Faith Healer and California Upscale Suburban Believer-In-Angels were discussing their healing methods. Although they disagreed on almost every theological issue, they found they had two things in common that they regarded as central to their practice:

They both were certain that their methods of healing were based on Eternal Laws That Have No Exceptions and that their ability to heal was Unlimited. They also agreed that Lingering Doubts and Self-Sabotaging Lack of Faith were the only possible reasons that some people appeared not to respond positively to their ministrations.

They were approached by Chronic Victim who began to question their theories. At first they were both entirely dismissive of his questions since, according to their theories Chronic Victim could not have anything of value to say at any point in time. However, Chronic Victim would not go away and kept pestering them for answers.

Chronic Victim kept asserting that some people were unlucky and that all healing methods failed for them, even if those methods worked for others. Southern Fundamentalist Faith Healer angrily proclaimed that Chronic Victim was a bitter person with a total lack of faith and that any failure on the part of Faith Healers would only be due to his cynical faithlessness.

California Upscale Suburban Believer- In-Angels chimed in: "You think you have faith. But if you look closely enough, you'll see that it's your Lingering Doubts that are the source of your Self-Sabotage."

Chronic Victim had been stumped by this logic before, so he paused and gave the matter some reflection. After a moment of awkward silence, Chronic Victim sought clarification. "Did you not also say that, in addition to your methods being 100% effective for 100% of the people, your methods can heal any condition whatsoever?"

"Yes, through faith," asserted Southern Fundamentalist Faith Healer, "all conditions can be cured. Not a one can be exempted."

"Great!" replied Chronic Victim, "then I am sure to be healed of everything from this day forward, since I now know for sure what it is I want to be healed of."

California Upscale Suburban Believer-In-Angels inquired, "And what condition would you have us heal you of?"

"I want you," said Chronic Victim with a look of ecstasy in his eyes, "to heal me of my lack of faith."

California Upscale Suburban Believer-In-Angles turned to Southern Fundamentalist Faith Healer and said, "I don't like that guy. He's just too creepy and negative. Let's go out for some sushi."

The Tale Of Needy Void

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Needy Void wandered about the country seeking love in every hamlet.

Again and again he was told, "You must first be happy and content and fulfilled within your own self with no help or comfort coming from the outside. Only when you are 100% content being alone at all times and have purged yourself of all human weakness can you truly love another."

After hearing The Self-Sufficiency Mantra from a thousand sources, Needy Void gave up his Search for Love and instead practiced Yoga every day and night for months on end, never once reaching out to others when he felt lonely.

At one point Needy Void became so self-sufficient that he no longer had any human needs of any kind that he could not meet through his own efforts and through his own strength.

At this point women began to fall in love with Needy Void. However, try as he might to accommodate them, Needy Void was unable to see any reason to fall in love, since no one had anything to offer him which he didn't already possess.

These scorned women who had once rejected him went around the county spreading the rumor that Needy Void was a heartless man.

Maitreya

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"Master, who will save the world from the throes of its delusions."

"Only the Future Buddha can do that."

"Who will be the Future Buddha."

"Maitreya, the one who waits in Tushita Heaven for the right moment to come and deliver the world from suffering."

"When will this right moment be."

"Very soon, certainly within my lifetime."

"Suppose you are on your deathbed and still Maitreya has not come? What will you do then?"

"I will abandon my faith in Maitreya altogether."

"Then who will save the world?"

"I will order you to do it."

The Celestial Dictator

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Lao Tsu was sailing in The Ocean of Timeless Formlessness on The Ship of Heavenly Bliss when his boat was washed ashore. Walking inland a ways, he again came upon The God of Angry Judgment.

"Ah," said Lao Tsu, "still scowling I see, and in the most self-important way. How shameful that your egotism will never die."

The God of Angry Judgment shouted, "Bow down and worship me and praise me or I shall consign you to flaming Hell for eternity."

Lao Tsu shook his head forlornly, "It's sad to see such a powerful person reduced to having to extort flattery from others. Had you realized The Great Truth, you would be beyond the need to surround yourself with flatterers. Such things are for the pathetic dictators and Kings of The World of Obsessive Clinging."

"How dare you insult my majesty!" frothed The God of Angry Judgment.

"Sir, there is nothing majestic about a formerly great man demanding praise at gunpoint. It's deeply sad to see The Creator of Planets reduced to hysterical begging for adoration. Are you afraid that if you didn't threaten people, they wouldn't naturally love you?"

"I am adored by a billion angels!" countered The God of Angry Judgment.

"Ah," noted Lao Tsu bleakly, "but they only love you out of fear. Didn't you yourself once say that perfect love casts out all fear? And since the love you have earned has all been earned by fear, it finally counts as inauthentic love after all. Sorry, but the hard fact remains that you are alone in this universe, like a millionaire who realizes not a single friend of his would remain were he to become a pauper. If you stopped rewarding them with Heaven and stopped threatening then with Hell, they would see that you are something along the order of a second-rate poet."

Again, The God of Angry Judgment motioned for Lao Tsu to be consigned to the depths of The Burning Pit of Eternity. But alas, Lao Tsu could not be moved.

"If you are the source of this universe," Lao Tsu concluded, "it's no wonder the Buddhists decided to cover up this embarrassment by claiming the Cosmos has no origination."

Lao Tsu, after watching this washed-up character gesticulate in fury for some time, wandered back to his boat and again set sail on The Sea of Non-Doctrine, past all the universes, and into The Place That Is No Place before creation itself.

And as he left, he turned toward shore and said to himself, "I don't think I've ever seen a sadder thing than that, an old, angry man twisting people's arms for love."

Just then Lao Tsu was surprised to notice something like an archangel landing on the bow of his ship.

"Hey," shouted Lao Tsu, "weren't you one of the multitude of cowering lackeys encircling that gaudy, overwrought throne?"

"Yes. Of course, that was me in there," he replied politely. "I just came to ask that you not mock our God so much. He's very insecure. His followers feel so sorry for him that they run around killing people every time he feels insulted. He's a brittle fellow. I myself have no fear of him whatsoever. Frankly, mine is a kind of love out of pity for the chap. In that way, I suppose my love is truer than those that fear him. I guess I've grown fond of him. Everyone else is either seeking to avoid Hell, or hoping to be bribed with Heaven. I might be one of a few who love him just as he is, even if, really, I can't think of a single quality to commend him. I guess love is just blind that way."

Lao Tsu was moved by this frank confession. Having to fight back a tear, Lao Tsu said sincerely, "I'm sorry if I've been too hard on the old fellow. I suppose I keep hoping he'll get enlightened one day when . . ."

". . . when you know that's not really possible," said the archangel, finishing Lao Tsu's sentence.

"I am very moved by your presence here after my disgraceful display of competitive rancor. Would you please," entreated Lao Tsu, "join me for some tea. The pot has just come to boil. And I would be honored to have you as a guest."

"Of course I accept your hospitality," replied the archangel with a slight bow.

And throughout that evening, an evening which lasted, in worldly time, some three or four thousand years, the two talked of what were, for them, simple affairs; the ego struggles of men and gods, travel conditions between dimensions, the movements of clusters of galaxies, The Extinction of Time and Vishnu's Great Sleep upon The Coiled Snake for trillions of years as all worlds dwelt in non-being.

Finally they arrived at The Other Shore Beyond All Conditions and Accumulations. Lao Tsu turned forlornly to his new friend and hugged him tightly.

"This is where I get off," said the archangel, "but you knew that already. I have someone to take care of; and I'm sure he has been missing me for quite some time."

"But," wept Lao Tsu, "we could still have trillions of years left in which to explore but a fraction of our immensity."

"No, no, Lao Tsu. You have your mission and I have mine. There's someone at home waiting for me. We can't all be as free as you. It's not fair to demand it of us."

The archangel paused in mid-air and his eye gleamed at Lao Tsu; and its twinkling was equal to a thousand diamonds of every color. Then, without a word, he turned back toward The Kingdom of Heaven to serve his friend for the countless eons that lay between that time and the time when Shiva would come to put all created things to sleep for incalculable kalpas.

Temple Doors

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"Sensei, I was in Biloxi, Mississippi last week and stumbled upon a small Buddhist temple that was open 24 hours per day. Why don't we do that here?"

"Because we are cheap, spoiled cowards who are uncommitted to our faith."

"If that is the case, why carry on with the religious life."

"Because cheap, spoiled, noncommittal cowards also need a religion."

"But why exactly do we only allow the temple doors to be open a few hours during the whole week? Why is it necessary to have the temple locked ninety percent of the time."

"You see, if we left the temple open so that worshippers could come and go as their schedules demanded, and if priests were always in attendance, then what we'd have here is a living faith that people could really integrate into their lives."

"What would be wrong with that?"

"Well the problem with attempting to have one's temple really foster a full spiritual life is that people would have to be willing to die for it."

"Muslims, Christians and Jews are willing to die for their faith. Why aren't we?"

"Because Christians, Muslims and Jews admit that war is a fact of life. So as a result, a few of them can risk opening their churches and mosques to the public night and day. They know that violence against clerics and nuns, vandalism of sacred objects, calls to the police, fights, and even security guards firing their guns, may ultimately be involved in such an endeavor."

"Doesn't Buddhism also teach that such things are a fact of life?"

"Yes, some Buddhist adepts have admitted this. However most Buddhists are trying to imagine that they themselves, and the world, have made much progress spiritually. If we were to open the temple night and day, and should a priest be attacked or an icon destroyed, and should the police be called and a criminal shot, then our congregation would have to admit that both themselves and the world are still in an ugly, primitive and monstrous place where such things as spies, armies, police snipers and security guards with batons are all still quite necessary. So we leave the temple closed so they can drive about the suburbs in their large cars and imagine that all would be well with the world if only others would have a more positive attitude. Weekly disturbances at an unlocked temple would reveal the craven self-deception involved in such thinking."

"Have you confronted your congregation with the hard facts of this?"

"No, you see, I am extremely incompetent at virtually all the business professions I've tried, and the profession of priest is simply the only possible way of survival for me."

"What has that got to with confronting them with their materialistic vacuity?"

"Whenever monks or priests in the past have attempted to confront the congregation with it's true state of being, they were fired immediately. One was relegated to working at a tofu factory until he had a nervous breakdown and another was forced onto Social Security Disability."

"Why not have two members of the congregation stand guard for added safety?"

"Because that would require our members to take time off from earning money and scheming to be rich. Such things cannot be compromised for something as uninteresting to them as The Dharma."

"But isn't the Dharma meant to help adepts and laymen face the truth of life and death?"

"The only thing most of these people are facing is the large plasma screen they've just purchased."

"So I guess this means the temple will be stay locked?"

"Tight as a drum."

Discredit-Your-Religion Meets No-Date-Money

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Discredit-Your-Religion was an endlessly curious skeptic who would go to all lengths to disprove all religious experiences. He'd heard of the celibate sage No-Date-Money, and was told that it would be a challenge to outsmart him. Discredit-Your-Religion was always up for a contest and would go to great lengths to outwit an opponent.

One day he undertook the task of walking up the thousands of stone steps one had to traverse to reach the obscure monastery in the distant hills of China where No-Date-Money lived. The steps were steep and went through canyons made of sheer rock towering thousands of feet in the air. As he passed several thousand feet in elevation, he beheld lofty banks of fog making their way through crags and clefts. And far off one could see dim lanterns glowing in widows.

For a moment he was lost in revelry and almost succumbed to feelings of sentimentality, dangerous territory indeed for a person with a scientific and rational mind. He reminded himself that such phenomena of nature were the result of certain statistical irregularities and the wear and tear of wind and rain. "There is no Grand Plan, nor any such nonsense," he said to himself firmly.

When he finally got to the monastery, he was very tired and cold. He was greeted by a kindly old monk who hurried over and threw a warm blanket over the visitor's shoulders, escorted him into the tea room, sat him down on a cushion and served him some hot green tea.

"Very nice," he thought to himself, "but I suppose such tactics are useful in breaking down the defenses of otherwise logical people. I must remember not to be taken in by such ceremonial kindness."

In about five minutes a group of seven monks piled into the room in a somewhat disorganized way, and suddenly there appeared No-Date-Money, decked out in a dozen layers of fabric, embroidered with a dizzying array of colors and textures. "Greetings!" he proclaimed, and then took his seat.

"And so what brings you to the top of the world, today, my fellow traveler?" inquired No-Date-Money.

"Sir, I have simply come to ask how it is that one could possibly find any joy in religion when one knows it all to be false and based on the most pathetic of human weaknesses?"

"That's a fair enough question," replied No-Date-Money.

"Also," the visitor added, "you are known to be a great celibate master. How is it that you came to choose celibacy?"

The Master stared back in surprise as all the monks rolled over laughing hysterically. It was then that the visitor realized the answer to his question was contained in the name of the person to whom he was asking the question.

"You will, no doubt, excuse the redundancy of my second question, and answer my first?" asked the visitor.

"Of course," replied No-Date-Money. "If you find that your rational mind can find no foundation for people's religious faiths, then I suppose you are curious how they can develop such strong religious feelings in the face of what you see as overwhelming evidence against the validity of such feelings?"

"That is it!" replied Discredit-Your-Religion. "Usually I show up to debate the merits of spiritual doctrines, but today I am truly curious about the psychological aspect of how such delusions could develop."

"I believe I have your answer," asserted No-Date-Money. "Let me ask you this: Is there a particular faith that you find more incredible than the others, more fantastic and unrealistic than the rest?"

"Yes," answered the visitor. "Specifically I am thinking of The Used Computer Cult now growing outside of Hong Kong. They will not permit old computers to be thrown away for fear of showing disrespect for the souls of those computers. Their God is the first supercomputer tape drive, which they believe is the first manifestation of God on Earth."

"Very good," replied No-Date-Money. "Then you are to take up a three-month residency in Hong Kong. Each day you are to pray to this God several times. You are to be in the constant attendance of their priests; and in your spare time you are to hand out missionary tracts in the city in an effort to win converts. However much revulsion this makes you feel, you are to suppress this nausea and carry on as though you're having the time of your life. Never let on to one single person that you are a social scientist simply testing them from the outside. When you have completed this experiment, I insist you come back at once and tell us what you have discovered."

*

Several months later a monk shouted out from the lookout tower. He directed the sage to gaze out over the Eastern ridge toward the great stairway. And there, still miles off, one could see Discredit-Your-Religion traipsing laboriously toward the monastery with and ancient IBM CPU strapped to his back. The sage laughed uproariously and ordered the tea room to be readied for their honored guest.

A while later the visitor had made it to the front gate of the monastery. Two assistants rushed out, one to welcome the returning intellectual and the other to carry in the CPU for the beleaguered traveler.

When they all assembled in the tea room, No-Date-Money excitedly inquired of the visitor, "Please tell us what took place? What is the reason for your bringing us this old computer?"

"Well," replied Discredit-Your-Religion, "things are not as simple for me as they were before. I still can't say that I believe in any gods, nor can I say that I am enthusiastic about the notion of an afterlife. Probably I'm still leaning toward Atheism."

"And yet something about you has changed," noted the sage.

"Yes, I find that my Atheism is a quieter thing, nothing I'm really anxious to push on anyone. I'll tell you the truth. Those computer-god guys are just a blast to hang out with. For one thing, they drink like fish, and there is no shortage of good wine at their temple. We spent long nights, for months on end, combing the streets in a van, picking up any computers, monitors, printers or accessories that were being thrown out. Each night we painted the outside of these devices with traditional Chinese characters which said, 'The souls of our technological forefathers are inside. Do not throw away. Treat with respect. All of life is sacred.'"

"Surely then you do not agree with any of their conclusions on these matters?"

"No, I don't," continued Discredit-Your-Religion. "And yet their activity seemed to enrich my life. It was as if they were trying to return to us something we had lost, and this was the only way they knew how to do it. Of course, I had to slip away one night because I could not continue to live that way. And yet I miss them, and sometimes I weep when I recall their earnest faces as they struggled day and night to keep up with the work."

"And to what do we owe the honor of your bringing us this thirty-year-old hulking computer?"

"It was my late Father's computer. He was a computer scientist for a government laboratory. He died only last year and I've not had the heart to sort through his stuff till just now. When I stumbled upon this old computer, I just could not bring myself to throw it out. I hoped you could perhaps make a small shrine for it out in the back."

The sage looked out at his assistants questioningly, not wanting to impose any more work on them than they already had to endure just to keep the monastery running. They all nodded back with grave certainty and willingness.

"Why sure!" responded No-Date-Money. "Nothing would honor us more. But tell me, have you entertained the notion that your Father's spirit is somehow living in there?"

The monks all leaned forward to listen very intently. The room was silent and the visitor looked down and blushed a bit.

"I could not live with myself if I turned superstitious," replied Discredit-Your-Religion, "but it would make me much more comfortable if I didn't have to throw that old computer in the trash."

"Why then do you not keep it at your house?" asked the sage with a concerned voice.

"It would remind me too much of the last three months. I have to get back to my job teaching science. My sabbatical is almost over and I can't take any more time off of work. I've been an Atheist for a long time now, and I think I just need to stick with that."

A wide smile came across No-Date-Money's face.

"Of course, we all need to stick firmly to our practice. We respect your wishes."

With that, Discredit-Your-Religion stood up and said, "I've got to go now. I don't think I'll be returning for a long time."

"Even so," replied the sage, "we will always consider you our friend."

Dwelling In No Abode Whatsoever

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After Sensei was fully defrocked and all his relationships had ended is disarray, he became an ordinary homeless man and beggar, incapable of any ordinary self-support.

Teach-You-A-Lesson happened to see him walking along the street one day and confronted him, "I hear you've made a wreck of all your careers and are now reduced to complete penury."

Sensei looked up from beneath the brim of his wide had and said, "Like a king in Varuna's vast halls of glory."

Teach-You-A-Lesson pressed his point: "I hear you were unable to bond with any one woman and ruined your reputation by groping every nubile tart in town. Now we see you reaping the just rewards of your chosen lifestyle. You have no one to turn to, and that's just what you deserve. No more sex or money for you!"

Sensei bowed deeply upon hearing this and replied, "Alas, the Saints of God have nowhere to lay their heads."

Teach-You-A-Lesson further inquired, "Is it true that you've been blacklisted from every temple due to your constant barrage of blasphemies?"

Sensei nodded and declared, "Totally gone!"

Teach-You-A-Lesson continued his cross-examination: "Did you ever bother to get a Masters degree or a Doctorate, or even bother to get a basic teaching credential?"

Sensei gravely asserted, "Not a trace left behind."

Teach-You-A-Lesson continued his taunt: "It's said that you could not pay your storage locker bills and all your poetry was thrown out and is now buried in the landfill dump."

A broad smile came across Sensei's face: "At last clean of all karmic residues!"

"People have grown weary of your long-winded lectures," continued Teach-You-A-Lesson. "You are seen muttering to yourself as you wander the streets aimlessly, desperately taking swigs from a whiskey flask. What will become of you?"

"Attained the highest vaults of Brahmá Heaven," replied Sensei.

"How can you stand here making transparently false excuses for yourself!" demanded Teach-You-A-Lesson. "What are you going to do now that you're homeless? Aren't you to the point of having to beg for your meals?"

"All of the Buddhas of past, present and future bow down before me," added Sensei.

"Don't try to sell me your self-serving pack of lies. I know what you're up to. By next week you'll be trying to mooch a dinner from me and hoping I'll run up my credit card just to buy you drinks. Why on earth should any of us put up with you now?" said Teach-You-A-Lesson.

Sensei proudly announced, "Only I am The World Honored One."

Teach-You-A-Lesson stormed off, unable to listen to any more of Sensei's words.

Sensei lurched forward and began stumbling along muttering to himself, "Not a care in the world. Beyond praise or blame. Dwelling in no abode whatsoever."

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