The Tubmaker's Story
(Two Zen stories I like)
It was the tradition for a Zen master to have a private interview with a student to measure the progress of the student. This interview was usually held in private with no interupptions.
A Zen master was holding such an interview. A Tubmaker (a maker of tubs as for baths) arrived and asked to see the master. Now this Tubmaker was supposedly nearly illiterate...he drank Tea and asked silly questions of the master each time he met the master. So the master asked that the Tubmaker wait outside until his interview with his student was completed.
When the Tubmaster heard this he became upset. "The local people say this master is like a living Buddha. If that is so", he asked, "then why does he make me wait? Even the stone Buddha idols outside, the kind we burn incense before, they never make anyone wait. All who come to burn incense before them are equally welcome. So, since that is true, why do I have to wait to see the living Buddha himself?"
When he heard what the Tubmaker had said the master excused hemself from the interview with his student. With that answer he had to go outside and talk to the Tubmaster.
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The Tea Seller's Story
(The old lady and the Monk)
A Monk spent many years studying the sutras. In particular he studied a sutra that said nothing was true, but that everything was a construction of mind, without any true validity.
He studied that sutra for many years, and wrote a long commentary on it.
The Monks in the south do not understand this sutra, he thought. I will carry my commentary to them, and show them how wrong their interpetation is.
So he loaded his heavy commentary on the sutra into a pack which he carried on his back, and left for the monestry to the south...so he could show them his commentary on the sutra...and convince them of their error in it's interpretation.
After a long juorney he came within sight of the monestry that was his goal. Just outside the gate he saw an old woman selling cups of Tea and sweet rice cakes. He thought that since he had walked a long way on his journey, he would stop and have a cup of Tea and some rice cakes.
When he sat down, and odrered his Tea and cakes, the old woman brought him his tea. "Where are you going", she asked, "and carrying such a heavy pack?"
"Well", said the Monk,"I am going to that monestry with a written commentary on a sutra. I will show them that they are mistaken in the interpretation of the sutra."
"I have read the sutra of which you speak", said the old woman. "In that sutra it says that niether the original mind nor the human mind are to be believed.... since both are but constructs of one's experience...and therefore have no true self existance.", she said.
"That is correct", said the monk, "but that is not all to be said regarding this sutra."
"Well that may be", said the old woman."But what I want to know is this; if neither your original mind, or your worldly human mind are to be trusted, both being constructions of your experience in this world, then with which mind do you intend to pay for this tea and cakes?"
And when the Monk heard the old woman say that, he understood that all his work and study of the sutra had been usless....and that the old woman had bested him in her understanding.
