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| comment | | "parent_author":"",<br>"parent_permlink":"zen",<br>"author":"dcj",<br>"permlink":"zen-koan-of-the-day-non-attachment",<br>"title":"Zen koan of the day - Non-Attachment",<br>"body":"### Non-Attachment\n\nKensure Kenjo,<br> chief monk of Edo temple,<br> was ninety-two years old when he passed away in the year 1929. He endeavored his whole like not to be attached to anything. As a wandering mendicant when he was twenty he happened to meet a traveler who smoked tobacco. As they walked together down a mountain road,<br> they stopped under a tree to rest. The traveler offered Kensure a smoke,<br> which he accepted,<br> as he was very hungry at the time.\n\n\"How pleasant this smoking is,<br>\" he commented. The traveler gave him an extra pipe and tobacco and they parted.\n\nKensure felt: \"Such pleasant things may disturb meditation. Before this goes too far,<br> I will stop now.\" So he threw the pipe away.\n\nWhen he was 23 years old,<br> he studied I-Ching,<br> the profoundest doctrine of the universe. It was winter at the time and he needed some heavy clothes. He wrote his teacher,<br> who lived 100 miles away,<br> telling him of his need,<br> and gave the letter to a traveler to deliver. Almost the whole winter passed and neither response nor clothing arrived. So Kensure resorted to the oracle of the I-Ching,<br> which also teaches the art of foresight,<br> to understand whether his letter had made it to his teacher. He found determined that it had not. A letter afterwards from his teacher made no mention of winter wear.\n\n\"If I perform such accurate oracular work with I-Ching,<br> I may neglect my meditation,<br>\" felt Kensure. So he gave up this marvelous teaching and never resorted to its powers again.\n\nWhen he was 28 he studied calligraphy and poetry. He grew so skillful in these arts that earned his teacher's praise. Kensure mused: \"If I don't stop now,<br> I'll be a poet,<br> not a Zen teacher.\" So he never wrote another poem.\n\n***\n\n***dcj commentary:*** *The decision to focus on a subject until reaching mastery is often not made with consideration for how it will affect the student's perspective.* ",<br>"json_metadata":" \"community\":\"busy\",<br>\"app\":\"busy\/2.4.0\",<br>\"format\":\"markdown\",<br>\"tags\":[\"zen\",<br>\"busy\",<br>\"meditation\",<br>\"mastery\",<br>\"blog\" " | | vote | "voter":"dcj",
"author":"dcj",
"permlink":"zen-koan-of-the-day-non-attachment",
"weight":10000 |
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