If the practitioner of Zen could understand that everything he encountered was empty and meaningless then he could be free to focus on each moment as if that moment was all that he had in the world.

And indeed, each moment of now is all that he has in the world. The rest is an illusion. He would need to remember to discuss this with his master, but maybe not!

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It is told that a Zen master once threw a person out for the window when that person asked him how to meditate.  

It is told that these sort of shock tactics often bring on states of enlightenment.

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“But how do I get to be happy?”  He knew by the look on the Zen master’s face that the question wouldn’t be answered.

“It is not a question worthy of an answer, ” came the reply. “Now if you had asked me, ‘how do get to be?’, that would have been of more value.”

“OK then, how do I get to be?”

“So foolish! But keep asking.”

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The day before he had been learning to focus on the here and now whilst working in the garden. “Let each task be all there is, ” instructed his Zen master.

Today, as he sat in zazen, his shoulder was giving him great pain from the exertion of the day before. There was no sympathy. Zazen had began as usual this morning.

As he struggled to focus on his inhalations and exhalations, his mind became more and more absorbed with the pain. Anger about his predicament came and went in intervals. Then all that was left was the pain. He had disappeared. The Zen master had disappeared. Then it occurred to him…

His pain had supported him in a great mental struggle at first, then because the ego- mind received no relief, no comfort, he was totally at one. Pain and self disappeared. All that was left was focus in its purest form. Then the zazen was over, and his predicament returned. He resolved not to try and escape from his experience from that point on, but he knew he would.  It wasn’t that easy, his practice was about the journey, not the desitination, and pain would be back and so would his resistance to it.

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Zazen had seemed to last an age and the Zen practitioner was tired and was wondering what he was doing… Where he was going.

“What’s the use of continuing with this spiritual business? It all seems so pointless”

“Pointless? I doubt it,” said the Zen master.

“It feels as if I’m getting nowhere fast!”

“Ah yes. I doubt it. Definitely”

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Trivial thoughts bombarded the Zen practitioner as he attempted to still the mind and focus only on his breathing. Suddenly he seemed to make a break-through.. Birth is a struggle as we come into this world, and I seem to have been struggling ever since! Would that be because I am constantly being re-born?

He knew what the Zen master would say and that would be, “What a shame you are plagued by such insights, during your zazen!” 

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“But I don’t understand!”  He beseeched his master with anger and frustration.

“Well, it’s easy enough. I have already told you that when you ask a question of me, I will ask one of you!” The Zen master used a form of mock anger.

“Well then, there’s no point. None of this makes sense! I met as well give it all up!”

“Well don’t just sit there give up!”

There was a silence for a moment before he answered. “But how do I give up now?”

“How do you give up now?”

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In Zen practice there are always questions. In fact you could say that everything hinges on the question, “who am I?”  There may be a thousand intellectual answers, but the one true answer that transcends all answers. It cannot be explained or written down even by a Zen master, for it is transcendental and experiential.

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