The Zen teacher Hakuin was known among his neighbors as a man who lived an immaculate life.
Next to him lived a beautiful girl, whose parents owned a grocery store. Suddenly her parents discovered that she was about to have a child. They were furious. The girl refused to name the child's father, but after much insistence she named Hakuin.
In great anger, the parents came to the teacher.
"Is this so?" - that was all he said.
After the child was born, he was brought to Hakuin. By that time, he had lost all respect from those around him, which did not bother him at all. He surrounded the child with care and warmth, took milk from neighbors for the child and everything he needed.
A year later, the girl-mother still could not stand it and told her parents the truth that the child’s father was a young man who worked at the fish market.
The girl's father and mother immediately went to Hakuin, asked him for forgiveness, apologized to him for a long time and asked him to return the child. Hakuin readily forgave them. Giving the child away, he only said: “Is this so?”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru