Post Zen Stories with moral meanings...

A Zen poem says, “After the wind stops I see a flower falling. Because of the singing bird I find the mountain calmness.” Before something happens in the realm of calmness, we do not feel the calmness; only when something happens within it do we find the calmness. There is a Japanese saying, “For the moon; there is the cloud. For the flower there is the wind.” When we see a part of the moon covered by a cloud, or a tree, or a weed, we feel how round the moon is. But when we see the clear moon without anything covering it, we do not feel that roundness the same way we do when we see it through something else. When you are doing zazen, you are within the complete calmness of your mind; you do not feel anything. You just sit. But the calmness of your sitting will encourage you in your everyday life…. Even though you do not feel anything when you sit, if you do not have this zazen experience, you cannot find anything; you just find weeds, or trees, or clouds in your daily life; you do not see the moon.
~Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind

One day while addressing a crowd, the popular Zen master Bankei was being heckled by a Nichiren Buddhist priest. The priest was yelling out, “I don’t understand a single word you’re saying!”
Bankei called out and said, “Come closer and I’ll explain it.”
The priest walked in the mist of the crowd. Bankei said “No, come closer.”
The priest edged closer, and Bankei said “No closer still,” until finally the priest was right next to Bankei. And Bankei said: “Ah look! How well you understand me!”

Kwan Yin and the Swallows
by Dharmadasa Karuna

“Kwan Yin is one of the most universally beloved of deities in the Buddhist tradition. Also known as Kuan Yin, Quan Yin, Quan’Am (Vietnam), Kannon (Japan), and Kanin (Bali), She is the embodiment of compassionate loving kindness. As the Bodhisattva of Compassion, She hears the cries of all beings.”

• * *

The cloud blue crests of Jianshan Mountain leaned into the morning light. Flaxen rays reached into the window of a young woman sleeping on a bed of straw. Her hair was the color of the night sky, and lapped over her belly and hips. Her skin was the color of the sun. She awoke and walked outside. The nest of swallows on her windowsill was empty. It was the end of summer.

Her bare feet pressed into the fallen leaves on the ground. She entered the woods in search of a cluster of white flowers with purple stems. Mother seemed unsure of herself this week, and Dong Quai would calm her nerves. She closed her eyes and let the forest guide her. She found the flowers in the silence.

“Kwan Yin, where are you? Talking to your birds again?”

“Coming mother.” The young woman emerged from the woods. “I was gathering a tonic for our tea.”

“I have to go wash clothes at the river for Mrs. Lim. Save the tea for lunch. We’re having visitors.”

“Who mother?”

“Madam Hong and her son.”

“Why are they coming? We don’t need visitors.”

“The fortune teller said you were a good match for Madam Hong’s son.”

“Mother, you know I don’t want to marry.”

“You are a woman now, and while your hair still falls down your back and your breath is sweet, you must take a husband.”

“I’m going to enter the nunnery.”

“That is a child’s dream, Kwan Yin.”

Kwan Yin looked down and did not answer.

“We are poor Kwan Yin, and the Hongs are wealthy. They are an honorable family. Do you understand?”

“Mother, I…”

“You have never been with a man and….”

“I know it is my duty to care for you.”

“They are not all as kind as your father was. After you clean the house and cook the meals, they will make you cut wood, carry water, and milk the goat. Then you must lay with them every night. Your work is only done when you sleep.”

“Mother, I know. I know what I must do.”

(the story is too long to post here…
google
kwan yin bird story choose the 3rd choice…note author as above)

Noticing that his father was growing old, the son of a burglar asked his father to teach him the trade so that he could carry on the family business after his father had retired.

The father agreed, and that night they broke into a house together.
Opening a large chest the father told his son to go in and pick out the clothing. As soon as the boy was inside, the father locked the chest and then made a lot of noise so that the whole house was aroused. Then he slipped quietly away.

Locked inside the chest the boy was angry, terrified, and puzzled as to how he was going to get out. Then an idea flashed to him- he made a noise like a cat. The family told a maid to take a candle and examine the chest. When the lid was unlocked the boy jumped out, blew the candle, pushed his way past the astonished maid, and ran out. The people ran after him. Noticing a well by the side of the road the boy threw in a large stone, then hid in the darkness. The pursuers gathered around the well trying to see the burglar drowning himself.

When the boy got home he was very angry at his father and he tried to tell him the story; but the father said: ‘Don’t bother to tell me the details, you are here- you have learned the art.’

10 BULLS by Kakuan
Read one of the most beautiful and most significant Zen story.
Transcribed by Nyogen Sensaki and Paul Reps – Illustrated by Tomikichiro Tokuriki

The bull is the eternal principle of life, truth in action. The ten bulls represent sequent steps in the realization of one’s true nature.
This sequence is as potent today as it was when Kakuan (1100-1200) developed it from earlier works and made his paintings of the bull.

Taken from the book: Zen Flesh, Zen bones compiled by Paul Reps, Anchor books, NY

http://www.deeshan.com/zen.htm

A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him.

Two mice, one white and one black started to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a lucious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. Ahh, how sweet is tasted!