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  • Tag Archives:  Inspirational anecdotes
  • Sleeping in the daytime

    The zen master Soyen Shaku passed from this world when he was sixty-one years of age. Fulfilling his life’s work, he left a great teaching, far richer than that of most Zen…

  • The giver should be thankful

    While Seisetsu was the master of Engaku in Kamakura, he required larger quarters, since those in which he was teaching were overcrowded. Umezu Seibei, a merchant of Edo, decided to donate five…

  • Ashtavakra, the pre-born genius

    The story of Ashtavakra is from the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata. It is the story of a young boy who was born deformed but whose intellect and wisdom surpassed many learned…

  • The holy shadow

    Let me tell you a very famous Sufi story, “The Holy Shadow.” There once lived a saint so good that the angels came from heaven to see how a man could be…

  • Way to be pure

    It happened….A man used to come to a great saint, and he would always ask, ‘Sir, one thing puzzles me. You are so innocent, so pure, how is this possible? Suspicion arises…

  • Truth at any cost

    The Chhandogya Upanishad has a beautiful story.Let us begin with it. Satyakam asked his mother, Jabala, “Mother, I want to live the life of a student of supreme knowledge. What is my…