Today, just for fun, Ananda and I were doing some beginning math
together out of a book. She was supposed to figure out if there
were
enough bones for the dogs on the page by matching them up
together.
I could see by glancing at it that we were one bone short. She
proceeded to draw lines from all the dogs except one and when she
was done I asked, "So, were there enough bones for the
dogs?" She
said, "Yep." I pointed and said, "What about this
one?" She said,
"Mommy, yook at him. He doesn't yook hungry at all."
I found this on: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~rsnarren/koan.html
the site doesn't give a book
or author attribution.
Hotei, the Happy Chinaman
Hotei lived in the T'ang dynasty. He had no desire to call
himself a Zen
master or to gather many disciples about him. Instead he walked
the streets
with a big sack into which he would put gifts of candy, fruit, or
doughnuts.
These he would give to children who gathered around him to play.
He
established a kindergarten of the streets. Whenever he met a Zen
devotee
he would extend his hand and say: "Give me one penny."
And if anyone
asked him to return to a temple to teach, again he would reply:
"Give me
one penny." Once as he was about his play-work another Zen
master
happened along and inquired: "What is the significance of
Zen?" Hotei
immediately plopped his sack down on the ground in silent answer.
"Then,"
asked the other, "what is the actualization of Zen?" At
once Hotei swung
the sack over his shoulder and continued on his way.
Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to rather
than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can
experience the flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to
accept
the present moment unconditionally and without reservation. It is
to
relinquish inner resistance to what is.
- Eckhart Tolle
___________________________________________________________