What keeps us interested in the animal world! By George me thinks I got it …we are animals Homo Sapiens to be scientifically correct. Enclosed is a transript of an unknown zen creature who may be smarter than you think!
A Singular Animal with or without fur… you be the judge!
A woodcutter was hard at work in the remote mountains when a strange animal appeared. He had never seen an animal like it before.
— Ah, said the animal, you have never seen anything like me before.
The woodcutter was very surprised to hear the animal speak.
— And you are astonished that I can speak…..
The woodcutter was also surprised that the beast knew his thoughts.
— And that I know what you are thinking, continued the animal.
Looking at the animal, the woodcutter wanted to catch it and take it back home.
— So, you want to catch me alive, do you?
If not that, maybe he could give it one blow with his axe and then carry it home.
— And now you want to kill me, said the animal.
The woodcutter realised that he could do nothing at all, since the beast always knew what he was thinking of doing. So, he went back to work, determined to ignore the animal.
— And now, it said, you abandon me.
Work as he might, the woodcutter found himself thinking of the animal standing there. The beast would then make an appropriate comment. He wished it would go away and was then told that he was wishing it would go away.
The animal apparently did not wish to go away. It stood there, near him, and read all of his thoughts. Nor did it seem well intentioned.
Finally, not knowing what else to do, the woodcutter resignedly took up his axe again, determined to pay no more attention to this singular animal, and began single-mindedly cutting the trees.
While he was so doing, with no thought in his head except the axe and the tree, the head of the axe flew off the handle and struck the animal dead.
From Zen Inkinlgs, by Donald Richie, an excellent book.
QUOTE: “We could say that meditation doesn’t have a reason or doesn’t have a purpose. In this respect it’s unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing.
When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.”
….Alan Watts
THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW: Shedding! Your pet isn’t the only one in the house with a shedding problem. Humans shed about 600,000 particles of skin every hour. That works out to about 1.5 pounds each year, so the average person will lose around 105 pounds of skin by age 70.
THINGS YOU MAY WANT TO SAVE:Animals. They have millions of years of history and are smarter than you think!
ZENTRAVELER SAYS: So you think you are an animal…maybe you are!!!!
From here to Infinity is a relatively short ride! The next leg takes eons and eons as you fly through the Barycentric Dynamical Time Zone! …and on and on and on.
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