Zen story:

“THE LOTUS SUTRA AND THE EMPTINESS”

Can you taste a luscious recipe by reading a cookbook? Can you feel loved or in love by reading a love story? To know life, you must experience life hands on. Theories won’t help

Osho tells a Zen story. Once, a man came to Zen master. He had read all the scriptures, memorized them and become a great philosopher because he always very efficient at using words, using logic. And this Zen master was just a villager. He had never read the Lotus Sutra, one of the greatest Buddhist scriptures worth preserving, worth always keeping close to one’s self. Just as there are bedside books, the Lotus Sutra is a heard side book, the lotus is the symbol for the heart, fully bloomed, it is indeed the heart. And Buddhists think there is nothing comparable to the Lotus Sutra

Now, this man had memorized the entire Lotus Sutra. He could narrate it from any point. Ask any question and immediately he would answer, like a computer, very efficiently.

So this knowledgeable man asked the Zen master, “have you read the Lotus Sutra?” the Zen master said. “Lotus Sutra? Never heard of it.” The man-the pundit, the scholar-said, “never heard of it? And people think you are enlightened!” The Zen master said, “People must be wrong, I am an ignorance man, how can I be enlightened?” The scholar was at ease now, so he said, “now I will repeat the Lotus Sutra, can you read?” the monk said, “I can’t read.” So the man said: “okay, then listen to me and I will explain anything you want to ask.”

The man had come to seek a master but now he had become a master. The ego never wants to be a disciple – it is always in search of a avenue to be a master. How the Buddha must have laughed at the situation! The master became a disciple. This disciple became a master and said,” listen.” The master started listening. The disciple said, “Okay.” He began to chant the Lotus Sutra.

In the Lotus Sutra, it is said everything is emptiness, this world is empty, hell is empty, heaven is empty, god is empty, and everything is emptiness. Emptiness, nothingness is the nature of all things, so be attuned to nothingness and you will achieve. Suddenly the master jumps and hits the pundit on the head. The pundit was enraged. He started shouting and said: “not only you are not enlightened, not only you are ignorance, you seem to be neurotic as well, what are you doing?”

The master sat again and said, “If everything is nothingness, from where this anger comes? The world is emptiness, heaven is emptiness, hell is emptiness, and the nature of things is nothingness. From where does this anger come?”

The pundit was puzzled. He said, “It is not written in the Lotus Sutra. You ask foolish questions. I have memorized the whole sutra and this is no way to ask a question. Hitting me is no way of ask a question”