Training stories

A pupil heard a teacher say that when by long training the individuality is transcended there is a cosmic effect. This effect is far greater than anything produced on the individual plain by individual words and actions. So this pupil asked the teacher: “It is clear to us sir, when we face you, that your former individuality has been transcended. So how is it that you continue giving teachings? We are grateful for them but from what you have said it seems contradictory that you go on.” The teacher told him about an incident in a nineteenth century autobiography by …

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In a certain dictatorship inhabitants were warned by official propaganda to beware of foreigners. If they had to talk to foreigners they were told to ask them what was their business in the country, and to report the replies to the police. A foreigner who had lived in the country before and knew the language was making another visit. He thought he would exercise his sense of humour and to a question from a restaurant owner as to his business he replied: “Well, don’t tell anyone but I am a spy.” He was gratified to see the shock on the …

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A hundred years ago a simple minded Indian peasant overheard a rich man say portentously, “Money attracts money”. He took a silver rupee from his tiny savings and went to the shop of a money lender in town with the idea of capitalising on this piece of knowledge. At one end of the counter the money lender was busy negotiating a loan. At the other end his strong-armed assistant was keeping guard over several piles of silver rupees. The peasant quietly came in and sat down in front of the money. When the assistant was momentarily distracted by a fit …

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A new disciple in a yoga group had some difficulties and she prayed for help. After a couple of weeks of no change, she put her case to a senior: “I pray and pray for help, but there’s no response, God never seems to be at home.” The senior said: “This is something that happens in ordinary life too, there’s a small shop near here that sells electrical goods, and repairs them. They also send an engineer if there’s a problem in a house. Well, apparently there was a request for someone to go round on quite a simple job. …

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In the classical Zen of China a monk, called by the Japanese Kyogen, was famous as a scholar who after many years had mastered the scriptures. When the Abbot, his teacher died the new Abbot told him he could if he wished leave the monastery as he had now full knowledge of the doctrine. To the others’ protests he set Kyogen the Koan riddle: “What is your true face before your father and mother were born?” Baffled and furious Kyogen left the monastery but the riddle haunted him. He spent the next years in isolation minding the shrine of the …

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In the 1930s when Japan was preparing for war, foreigners were regarded with great suspicion, especially by the police. Sometimes the suspicions were built on chance coincidence without any substance, but in the official mind they proved hard to shift. A young accountant employed by a foreign firm used to enliven his evenings by visits to geisha houses, where he drank and talked and laughed with the girls. He never learned any Japanese but as it happened he was a very good mimic. In the course of these evenings he learned to sing some of the little songs along with …

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The Zen Master Shido Bunan was once appealed to by a family of local lords at Okubo. For over twenty years they had been plagued by continuous misfortunes and they had consulted various astrologers, spirit mediums, and even some Buddhist priests, but without success. The disasters went on. When the request for help came Bunan read it and simply said: “there’s no need for me to make a special visit for this sort of thing. Give the messenger this.” He slumped down at his writing table, slapped down a sheet of white paper, snatched up a brush, and splodged what …

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Some of the Christian missionaries who went to Japan in the mid-19th century were scholarly men, who mastered the language both spoken and Classical, and also made a study of basic Buddhism. However, one such found to his dismay that he was sometimes unable to meet the arguments of Buddhists in public debates, and decided that he must go far deeper into Buddhism to find the refutations he sought. He heard that the greatest scholar of Buddhism was a Zen abbot living in semi-retirement in a tiny monastery. He made inquiries, and found that the abbot never took any fee …

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A woman member of a traditional Yoga group also served on the fund-raising committee of a charity. Her written articles and her appeals at public meetings were attractive, and brought in many more donations than those of her colleagues. She began to notice a certain coolness towards her suggestions at committee meetings; they were nearly always turned down on some pretext. She mentioned this to the teacher, saying, “I wonder whether I am seen as bossy or something like that. I try not to present my suggestions in a pushy way, but still I feel I must be doing something …

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If one wants to give up a bad habit, but is not prepared at first simply to break it off, then a useful strategy is just to make it difficult. I saw a Japanese man, a heavy smoker, who had got the idea that it was bad for his health, and had evolved a strategy to control it. He was an artist, and artists smoke heavily. When he was at a party and wanted a cigarette, he would take out a pouch, from which he would produce a piece of metal, a flint, some indeterminate material similar to brown cotton …

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