A ZEN story

At the age of twenty, as a wandering mendicant, "Kitano Gempo" once came upon a traveller who was smoking a tobacco. He accepted the smoke that the traveller shared with him and relished it. The traveller then gave him an extra pipe and a tobacco when they parted.

Kitano felt : “Such pleasant things may spoil my meditation. Before this actually gets on to me, let me stop this now” He thus threw the smoking pipe away.

At the age of twenty three, Kitano studied I-King, the most profound document of the universe. It happened to be winter during that time and Kitano needed some warm wears. Hence he wrote a letter to his teacher who was hundred miles away asking him to send some clothes to combat the winter chill. Winter was almost over and he still did not receive a reply or the clothes. Hence Kitano resorted to know the status of the letter as to whether it was miscarried, through the prescience of I-King which also dealt with divination. He found out that the letter was miscarried. A letter later which came from his teacher did not carry any mention of the clothes.

Kitano then thought, “If I perform analysis accurately with the work of I-King, I may ignore my meditation,” Hence he gave up the teachings of I-King and its marvelous powers.

At twenty eight Kitano resorted to learning Chinese Calligraphy and Poetry. He emerged skillful in the art and earned the praise of his teacher. Kitano felt, “If I dont stop now, I'll will be a poet instead of a Zen master” That was the last he ever wrote a poem.