A couple of days back I was reading some stories from Zen Philosophy. Most of them were very interesting although some of them have been written just for the sake of thrusting the moral into our heads. Zen story writers [if I can call them that way ;)] have implemented reverse engineering long ago. Any ways, out of all the stories, one was lingering in my head for a long time. Here it is... (I am sure many would have heard this story in various forms)
There was once a zen follower who was very sincere, dutiful and spiritual. His guru got so impressed with his disciple that he presented him with very good looking and fastest running white horse. But then there is something thats peculiar about this horse. Like the disciple the horse is also very spiritual and religious. The horse will run only when you called for god. So every time you say "oh my god", the horse will run. And again in order to keep the horse running and to increase the speed, you have to call god continuously. The only way to make it stop is to thank god. The guru mentioned his disciple about this strange method and gave him the horse. The disciple was so impressed with the horse that he want to take a ride on it. He tested it by saying "oh my god" and the horse started running. But his curiosity didn't end there. He wanted to know, how fast this horse could run. And hence he started chanting "oh my god" continuously and vigorously. The horse was now zooming past with extraordinary speed. The disciple started freaking out and didnt know what to do. He started pulling the strings to stop the horse. The fear of death loomed large on his head, and hence he couldnt remember the part regarding how to stop the horse. Without knowing what he was doing, he started calling god again and again to save him. And the poor horse, considered that as a command for him to run and was pumping his speed to a larger value. Somehow, the disciple finally remembered his guru's commands and said "thank you god". The horse stopped immediately. The disciple felt relieved and looked around. The horse has just stopped 1 foot from jumping into a valley. Seeing the depth of valley, the disciple felt a shock and shouted "oh my god"...!!!!
The story was actually written as a part of a teaching that, praying and calling god shouldnt be done without actually meaning it.
There was once a zen follower who was very sincere, dutiful and spiritual. His guru got so impressed with his disciple that he presented him with very good looking and fastest running white horse. But then there is something thats peculiar about this horse. Like the disciple the horse is also very spiritual and religious. The horse will run only when you called for god. So every time you say "oh my god", the horse will run. And again in order to keep the horse running and to increase the speed, you have to call god continuously. The only way to make it stop is to thank god. The guru mentioned his disciple about this strange method and gave him the horse. The disciple was so impressed with the horse that he want to take a ride on it. He tested it by saying "oh my god" and the horse started running. But his curiosity didn't end there. He wanted to know, how fast this horse could run. And hence he started chanting "oh my god" continuously and vigorously. The horse was now zooming past with extraordinary speed. The disciple started freaking out and didnt know what to do. He started pulling the strings to stop the horse. The fear of death loomed large on his head, and hence he couldnt remember the part regarding how to stop the horse. Without knowing what he was doing, he started calling god again and again to save him. And the poor horse, considered that as a command for him to run and was pumping his speed to a larger value. Somehow, the disciple finally remembered his guru's commands and said "thank you god". The horse stopped immediately. The disciple felt relieved and looked around. The horse has just stopped 1 foot from jumping into a valley. Seeing the depth of valley, the disciple felt a shock and shouted "oh my god"...!!!!
The story was actually written as a part of a teaching that, praying and calling god shouldnt be done without actually meaning it.
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