Buddhist stories have a unique ability to convey the true spirit of enlightenment

Buddhist Stories 1

Bodhidharma brought Zen Buddhism from India to China. He was well known for being fierce and uncompromising. There is a story about how he kept nodding off during meditation, so he cut off his eyelids. When he threw them on the ground, they turned into a tea plant, and then he realized he could simply drink the tea to stay awake!

He was uncompromising in that he wanted to know what was true, and he wasn't going to take anybody's word for it. His big discovery was that by looking directly into our own heart, we find the awakened Buddha, the completely unclouded experience of how things really are.

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

Buddhist Stories 2

There's an old Zen story: a student said to Master Ichu, "Please write for me something of great wisdom." Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word: "Attention." The student said, "Is that all?" The master wrote, "Attention Attention."...

For "attention" we could substitute the word "awareness." Attention or awareness is the secret of life and the heart of practice....[E]very moment in life is absolute itself. That's all there is. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is no past, there is no future; there is nothing but this.

So when we don't pay attention to every little this, we miss the whole thing. And the contents of this can be anything. This can be straightening our sitting mats, chopping an onion, visiting one we don't want to visit. It doesn't matter what the contents of the moment are; each moment is absolute. That's all there is, and all there ever will be. If we could totally pay attention, we would never be upset. If we're upset, it's axiomatic that we're not paying attention. If we miss not just one moment, but one moment after another, we're in trouble.

Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special: Living Zen

Buddhist Stories 3

There's a Zen story in which a man is enjoying himself on a river at dusk. He sees another boat coming down the river toward him. At first it seems so nice to him that someone else is also enjoying the river on a nice summer evening. Then he realizes that the boat is coming right toward him, faster and faster.

He begins to get upset and starts to yell, "Hey, hey watch out! For Pete's sake, turn aside!" But the boat just comes faster and faster, right toward him. By this time he's standing up in his boat, screaming and shaking his fist, and then the boat smashes right into him. He sees that it's an empty boat. This is the classic story of our whole life situation.

Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are

Buddhist Stories 4

There's a story of three people who are watching a monk standing on top of a hill. After they watch him for a while, one of the three says, "He must be a shepherd looking for a sheep he's lost." The second person says, "No, he's not looking around. I think he must be waiting for a friend." And the third person says, "He's probably a monk. I'll bet he's meditating."

They begin arguing over what this monk is doing, and eventually, to settle the squabble, they climb up the hill and approach him. "Are you looking for a sheep?" "No, I don't have any sheep to look for." "Oh, then you must be waiting for a friend." "No, I'm not waiting for anyone." "Well, then you must be meditating." "Well, no. I'm just standing here. I'm not doing anything at all." ...

[S]eeing Buddha-nature requires that we... completely be each moment, so that whatever activity we are engaged in--whether we're looking for a lost sheep, or waiting for a friend, or meditating--we are standing right here, right now, doing nothing at all.

Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen

Buddhist Stories 5

A Zen poem says, "After the wind stops I see a flower falling. Because of the singing bird I find the mountain calmness." Before something happens in the realm of calmness, we do not feel the calmness; only when something happens within it do we find the calmness.

There is a Japanese saying, "For the moon; there is the cloud. For the flower there is the wind." When we see a part of the moon covered by a cloud, or a tree, or a weed, we feel how round the moon is. But when we see the clear moon without anything covering it, we do not feel that roundness the same way we do when we see it through something else. When you are doing zazen, you are within the complete calmness of your mind; you do not feel anything. You just sit.

But the calmness of your sitting will encourage you in your everyday life.... Even though you do not feel anything when you sit, if you do not have this zazen experience, you cannot find anything; you just find weeds, or trees, or clouds in your daily life; you do not see the moon.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind

Buddhist Stories 6

"There was a king who had a very powerful elephant, able to cope with five hundred ordinary elephants. When going to war, the elephant was armed with sharp swords on his tusks, with scythes on his shoulders, spears on his feet, and an iron ball on his tail. The elephant-master rejoiced to see the noble creature so well equipped, and, knowing that a slight wound by an arrow in the trunk would be fatal, he had taught the elephant to keep his trunk well coiled up.

But during the battle the elephant stretched forth his trunk to seize a sword. His master was frightened and consulted with the king, and they decided that the elephant was no longer fit to be used in battle.... [I]f men would only guard their tongues all would be well! Be like the fighting elephant who guards his trunk against the arrow that strikes in the center."

Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha

Buddhist Stories 7

...No special effort is necessary to realize the Self. All efforts are or eliminating the present obscuration of the Truth. A lady is wearing a necklace around her neck. She forgets it, imagines it to be lost and impulsively looks for it here, there and everywhere. Not finding it, she asks her friends if they found it anywhere, until one kind friend points to her neck and tells her to feel the necklace around her neck.

The seeker does so and feels happy that the necklace is found. Again, when she meets other friends, they ask her if her lost necklace was found. She says, "yes" to them, as if it were lost and later recovered. Her happiness at re-discovering it round her neck is the same as if some lost property was recovered. In fact, she never lost it nor recovered it. And yet she was once miserable and now she is happy. So also with the Realization of the Self.

Ramana Maharshi

Buddhist Stories 8

There is a classic Zen koan that asks you to describe your own original face, the one you had before you were born. I've never come as close to being able to answer that question as I did the year my mother died. She had cancer and became bedridden for a very short time.

During the last three or four days of her life, she began to change outwardly a great deal. She lost weight rapidly, and her skin began to tighten and become less wrinkled. She, in fact, began to appear transformed into someone very relaxed and quite young. She began to closely resemble photos of her that I had seen, pictures taken when she was in her early twenties. She was like a young woman who had dyed her hair grey as if on a whim--a restless echo of happier times.

When I looked at her, I felt swallowed up in some kind of enormous gift. It was as if I had been given the opportunity of seeing my mother as she was before I was born. Time seemed really to stand still. And time because exceptionally real for me, only because it had ceased to exist. The woman before me was time. And I was time. And the room was time.

Gary Thorp, from 365 Nirvana, Here and Now by Josh Baran

Buddhist Stories 9

A young man named Sigala used to worship the six cardinal points of the heavens--east, south, west, north, nadir and zenith--in obeying and observing the last advice given him by his dying father. The Buddha told the young man that in the "noble discipline" of his teaching, the six directions were different. According to his "noble discipline" the six directions were: east; parents; south: teachers; west: wife and children; north: friends, relatives and neighbors; nadir: servants, workers and employees; zenith: religious men.

"One should worship these six directions," said the Buddha. Here the word "worship" is very significant, for one worships something sacred, something worthy of honor and respect. These six family and social groups mentioned above are treated in Buddhism as sacred, worthy of respect and worship. But how is one to "worship" them? The Buddha says that one could "worship" them only by performing one's duties toward them.

Walpola Rahula, in What the Buddha Taught

Buddhist Stories 10

One day Mara, the Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder.

The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendants asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth." "Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth, O evil one?" his attendants asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this they usually make a belief out of it."

Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, in Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart

Buddhist Stories 11

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the cup overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in." "Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones

Buddhist Stories 12

The oft-cited parable of the burning house tells of a father distraught as his children blithely play, unaware that the house is ablaze. Knowing of their respective predilections for playthings, he lures them from the inferno with the promise that he has a cart for each waiting outside, a deer-drawn cart for one, a goat drawn cart for another, and so on.

When they emerge from the conflagration, they find only one cart, a magnificent conveyance drawn by a great white ox, something that they had never even dreamed of. The burning house is samsara, the children are ignorant sentient beings, unaware of the dangers of their abode, the father is the Buddha, who lures them out of samsara with the teaching of a variety of vehicles. . . knowing that in fact there is but one vehicle, the Buddha vehicle whereby all beings will be conveyed to unsurpassed enlightenment.

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., in Buddhism in Practice