Short Zen Stories: 'A Real Miracle'

Today, Simply Cosmic explores a Zen Loan called "A Real Miracle," which is a story of a priest who became jealous of a Zen master because he has a large crowd gathering to listen to the master. The priest compares his own master to the Zen master in front of him. Let's see what we can learn from this story.

Transcript

Hello everybody.

I am your brother Simply Cosmic in the Moment coming to you from the Forest of Truk Lam Meditation Center or temples where you hear the sound of birds,

Hawks,

The chickens.

There you go.

I am surrounded by bamboo.

I am surrounded by wildlife,

Insects.

And I am in this moment coming to you with some Zen Koans.

And recently I have gotten into this thing called Zen Koans which are stories that help us move closer towards enlightenment.

Also meaning that stories that help us empty ourselves.

I am reading a story coming from this thing called,

This book called The Spirit of Zen,

Teaching Stories of the Way to Enlightenment by Salalah Towler.

The Zen Koans,

I love it because they allow you to get what Zen is about by not getting it.

Which means that of course Buddhism is about enlightenment and enlightenment is about emptying your senses and actually instead of talking about emptying we actually just get silent.

But if we stay silent the whole time it is hard to spread Buddhism or spread spirituality.

Through my evolution I found that Buddhism has more to do with spirituality than actually a religion.

It is a religion that has nothing to do with religion.

It is just about experimenting the human consciousness that God in the universe is not something that is in the sky.

It is in your heart and everywhere.

But for you to experience that you would have to silence your ego first.

So today we are going to be talking about a story called A Real Miracle.

So listen up,

Here we go.

A Real Miracle.

Once when Master Bankei was lecturing at Ryuumon Temple,

A priest from the Chinchu set who taught that just by chanting the name of Amida Buddha one could be saved came by.

When he saw the large crowd of people listening to Master Bankei he became jealous.

He charged up to the front of the room and challenged Bankei right in the middle of his talk.

The master of our sect had miraculous powers,

He began in a loud voice.

He would stand on one side of a river holding a brush.

On the other side his student would stand with a piece of paper.

When our teacher wrote the holy name of Amida Buddha in the air with his brush the word would just appear on the paper on the other side of the river.

Here he stood and looked triumphantly at the assembled gathering.

Then he turned back to Master Bankei and asked,

Can you perform such miracles as this?

Perhaps your master can perform such miracles but this is not in the true spirit of Zen answered Master Bankei in a calm voice.

My miracle is that when I am hungry I eat and when I am thirsty I drink.

And that is the end of the story.

What did we learn from this story?

So to get you engaged I'm going to slightly sum it up.

It's a short story.

Master Bankei was lecturing at a temple.

A priest from the Shinshu sect came by and became jealous because he had a large crowd of people around him.

He challenged the master and said that his own master can do miraculous powers in an egoic way.

He said in the lava.

He said that his master could write on a piece of paper like a superpower.

Let's just say it's a superpower.

He could stand and write on one side and it would appear on the other side of the river.

He asked,

Can you perform such miracles as this?

And Master Bankei answered,

My miracle is that when I am hungry I eat and when I am thirsty I drink.

Let's take a deep breath first,

Breathing in and slowly out.

In the true spirit of Zen,

Right?

Meaning that the true spirit of Zen is now.

And being in the present moment,

Realizing that the miracle is simply this moment.

That we are one with everything.

But for us to say we are one,

We are thinking that we are one but to feel the sounds of the wind and the leaves,

The energy around us,

The mosquitoes around me,

Trying to,

You know,

The mosquitoes around me right now,

The beautiful garden.

Yes,

There may be people and masters around the world who have superpowers,

Who have all this and that.

And that miracles are simply what we perceive it to be.

Some people see a miracle as something that's unexplainable.

You can walk on water,

You can fly,

You can know what somebody else is thinking,

You can locate somebody somewhere.

But in this case,

Master Bankei,

My master is that when I am hungry I eat and when I am thirsty I drink.

See,

He's trying to help us be more humble about this thing called spiritual awakening or enlightenment path.

And that enlightenment has less to do with getting powers and opening your third eye and all this.

It has to do more about being in the here and now.

And being grateful for that.

And being deeply grateful in the now.

Because most people seek power as a spiritual,

Okay,

Let's not say more,

Many people seek spiritual powers and gifts as a spiritual practitioner that they miss the miracle of the now.

They forget to say thank you for my life.

They forget to realize that just breathing is a miracle.

Having food to eat,

Having water to drink,

That simply being alive is a miracle itself.

Now while the ego says that's not a miracle,

But when you really realize how precious and fragile life is,

You start to realize if we stop breathing we would not be listening to this audio recording.

We would not hear the sounds of the bamboo leaves ruffling in the wind.

We would not hear the birds singing.

We would not hear my voice speaking.

And we're not downplaying or reducing the beauty of masters who have metaphysical powers that are unexplainable.

We're saying that that is possible and that is amazing.

But for us to evolve into that,

For us to grow to something beyond the mind can comprehend,

We have to grow where we can't see something that's already there,

Which is the miracle of now.

When we are not able to see the miracle of now,

It's hard for us to get a superpower or for us to open our third eye.

Many people are so caught up,

Many mystics and practitioners,

But so focused and it was me too,

Let's just be honest.

I used to be really focused on the third eye and then the crown chakra,

Then the heart chakra,

Because I was seeking this thing called spiritual power,

Which is like something my mind can't explain but it's just so cool,

Only to realize that for me to evolve and open the third eye and get quote-unquote superpowers,

I had to be grateful for this moment.

I had to really realize how much love there is in every moment of my life if I allowed it to happen.

When we say that a miracle is one thing,

That miraculous powers is one thing,

We don't realize that a miraculous power is what you choose for it to be.

For children,

It's toys,

Having toys.

For a parent,

A miraculous power is for their kids to be well off in this world and have jobs and go to college and have enough food to eat.

A miraculous power for a homeless person is for them to get money and to get food.

Oftentimes,

We don't realize the miracle of each moment and that today,

I challenge you,

Can your miracle be that when you're hungry,

You get to eat and that when you're thirsty,

You get to drink.

When we can feel our life with just gratitude and realize that it can be that simple if we allow it to be,

That a miracle and love and connection and enlightenment can be that simple if we allow it to be.

Because enlightenment is what we perceive enlightenment to be,

But when we start understanding enlightenment,

We understand nothing.

But on the way there,

Some gratitude helps us.

On the way there,

Some love in the moment helps us.

And on the way there,

Peace in the moment definitely helps us.

And today,

I thank you for listening.

I am your brother,

Simply Cosmic.

If you're interested in connecting more with me,

I have a live stream on twitch.

Tv slash cosmic underscore unwind.

Spreading love,

Peace,

Sound healing,

Singing bowls,

Reading Zen koans and doing whatever it takes to help people love themselves.

And the theme is loving your damn self.

Anyways,

Peace and blessings.

I hope you enjoyed this expression,

This talk so far.

And I plan to bring you more of conscious content.

And shout out to Insight Timer for this beautiful place that we can connect and the power of the internet.

Thank you and I hope you're having a nice day.

Reviews

Beautiful thank you Namaste 🙏🏻🌈

A helpful reminder, thank you.🙏

Bows

Such an amazing moment of beauty! Thank you! 🌱

❤️

Thank you for this teaching 🙏 Love yourself first and accept yourself as you are because you are a miracle ! 🙏❤️

Excellent, I liked your interpretation of Solala Towlers story. I hope that others who listen to your Track and like the story will be happy to know that Solala Towler is also a Teacher on Insight Timer. Thank You so much for Creating and Sharing this Track with all of us on I.T. I am so grateful to have been recommended to you by a Friend. I will Follow you as soon as I finish this. Thank You again 😊 !!! 🙏🙏🙏💙💙🤗🌺🌺🌿🌸🏵️🌿💟💜💙💚🕊️🕊️🕊️🙋‍♀️

Loved this.

What a wonderful story. I really like this man who spoke, as this is the first review I’ve ever left.
Thank you.