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 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?
Then the ruler asked:
—What is the teaching of Buddhism?
The teacher said the following famous lines:
Do no harm
And use good
And keep your heart pure -
This is the teaching of Buddha
The ruler, however, objected:
- Any three-year-old child knows this.
“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