One day, the ruler of the region visited a Zen teacher, popularly nicknamed Bird's Nest because he was meditating while sitting on a tree among the dense foliage. The ruler examined the place of meditation and said:
- What a dangerous place you have there, at the top of the tree!
“Yours is much worse than mine,” the teacher objected.
“I am the ruler of this region and I don’t see what danger could threaten me.”
- So, you don’t know yourself, when you outlive your passions, and your consciousness loses stability, what could be more dangerous than this?
—What is the teaching of Buddhism? - asked the ruler.
The teacher said the following famous lines:
- Do not do evil, but use good. And keeping the heart pure is the teaching of the Buddhas.
- Any three-year-old child knows this! - the ruler objected.
“Perhaps any three-year-old child knows this, but even an eighty-year-old man finds it difficult to put it into practice,” summed up the Zen teacher, sitting in his tree.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru