Zen Stories have a timeless relevance. It is remarkable that these
stories emerging from China and Japan in the 12th and 13th Centuries
can still speak to us freshly today.
I first discovered the book Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings, compiled by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, when I was in High School in the 1960s. It seemed full of promise and deep meaning for young people in the Counter-Culture.
Still today I treasure this book, not simply for its classic simplicity and nostalgic wisdom, but because it still brings forth fresh meaning which enhances meditation and thought.
I would like to introduce and interpret some of the stories in this blog, as they emerge from experience.
This book is actually a collection of Zen Classics, rendered in beautiful English in the form of parables and themes for meditation. The first classic is the Shasheki Shu (砂石集), or Collection of Stone and Sand, written in the late 13th Century by the Zen teacher Muju (無住), the ''non-dweller''.
The 40th entry in that classic is called, In Dreamland, and to paraphrase, the story runs like this...
A certain Schoolmaster had the habit of taking naps in the afternoon. His students asked him why he did this, and he replied that in these naps he visited the old sages in dreamland, just as the Master Confucius once did, and from this drew on ancient wisdom.
The Schoolmaster once caught several of the students napping in the afternoon, and called them to task. The students replied that they had been visiting the old sages to draw on ancient wisdom. The Schoolmaster scolded the students asking them, ''So what did the old sages say?''
The students replied that, ''We asked the sages if our Schoolmaster visited them every afternoon, but they said they had never heard of such a fellow.''
In dreams, Confucius learned from the old sages, the Schoolmaster learned from Confucius, and the students learned from the Schoolmaster. However, the story suggests that there was a difference in the quality and substance of what each of these people learned from dreams.
Moreover, in Zen there is a teaching that we are actually dreaming while we are awake, missing the essential truths around us, until we can achieve real awakening through Zazen, or Zen Meditation.
And yet we can presume that Confucius really did draw on the ancient wisdom of the old sages, because it is evident in his writings. The fact that the Schoolmaster left no writings of any worth is already telling, although he appears in this story. It is doubtful that the students learned much of anything in their dreams, awake or asleep, and yet they bring the Schoolmaster down to earth with their clever response. Hopefully, they bring us to our senses as well, when we realize that we are also caught in the dream.
Perhaps we cannot help but be caught in the dream, but we can aspire with Confucius, to gain wisdom from it. Who are your mentors, and do you learn from them regularly?
Do you practice some form of meditation?
What is the quality of your thoughts, and how can you raise it?
Does this story carry a different message for you?
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