The first incident happened before Ashtavakra was born. Nothing is known of what came afterwards but this is an incident while he was still in the womb. His father, who was a great scholar, would recite the Vedas every day while Ashtavakra listened from the womb. One day a voice came from the womb […]
There is a beautiful story. Gautam Buddha comes into a town. The whole town has gathered to listen to him but he goes on waiting, looking backwards at the road — because a small girl, not more than thirteen years old, has met him on the road and told him, “Wait for me. I am […]
It happened about a very famous Zen woman, her name was Rengetsu…. Very few women have attained to the Zen ultimate. This one is one of those rare women. She was on a pilgrimage, and she came to a village at sunset and begged for lodging for the night, but the villagers slammed their doors. […]
People are so foolish. Either they are deceived by words or they are deceived by silence — but they are deceived either way. There is a famous Zen story. I would like to tell it to you. A monk called himself the ‘Master of Silence’. He was actually a fraud and had no genuine understanding. […]
There is an ancient story, the famous Zen story, The Ten Bulls of Zen. It is a pictorial story with ten picture cards, each card containing a phase of man and his evolution. The original pack consisted of only nine cards; the tenth was added by a madman like me. Everybody opposed him, everybody denounced […]
I have heard: A king went into his garden and found wilted and dying trees, shrubs and flowers. The oak said it was dying because it could not be tall like the pine. Turning to the pine, he found it drooping because it was unable to bear grapes like the vine. And the vine was […]
These gods go on being born and dying, but these are not the true God. ‘True God’ simply means life — AES DHAMMO SANANTANO — the inexhaustible law of existence. How can it die? There is no way. Forms change…. It seems God visited the New York subways recently. Someone had scrawled on the wall: […]
