Baynan Tree
March 2024
Banyan Tree
TEACHING STORY
THE TEA TEST
A young man wanted to learn Zen, so he went to a famous Zen master and requested him to accept him as his student. The master agreed and told him to follow him to his hut.
The master entered the hut, and the student followed him in. The hut was small and simple, with a bed, a table, a chair, and a shelf. On the shelf, there was a teapot and two cups.
The master invited the student to sit on the chair and poured some tea for him. The student thanked him and took a sip. The tea was hot and bitter, but he did not complain.
The master then poured some tea for himself and sat on the bed. He took a sip and smiled. The tea was sweet and fragrant, but he did not boast.
The student noticed the difference and wondered why. He looked at the teapot and saw that it had two spouts. One was labelled ‘sweet,’ and the other was labelled ‘bitter.’
He realised that the master had deliberately given him the bitter tea and kept the sweet tea for himself. He felt angry and cheated, and asked the master, “Why did you do that? Why did you give me the bitter tea and take the sweet tea for yourself?”
The master looked at him and said, “You came here to learn Zen, not to drink tea. The tea is just a test, to see how you react to the situation. You have shown me that you are attached to your preferences and resentful of others. You have shown me that you are not ready for Zen.”
The student felt ashamed and humbled, and asked the master, “What should I do then? How can I be ready for Zen?”
The master said, “Zen is not about sweet or bitter but about seeing things as they are. Zen is not about preferences or resentment but about acceptance and gratitude. Zen is not about learning or doing but about being and awakening.”
The student nodded and bowed to the master. He thanked him for the lesson and asked for his forgiveness. He said, “Please teach me more.”
The master smiled, and said, “You have already learned the most important thing. Now, drink your tea.”
THIS I KNOW
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
- Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
- The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
- You see things; you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’
- If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh; otherwise, they’ll kill you.
- There is no love sincerer than the love of food.
- People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.
- Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.
- The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
- Write your sad times in sand, write your good times in stone.
- We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
INSPIRATION
THE FEAR OF LIFE AND DEATH
Death wanders through our lives at will, sweet Death
Is busy with each intake of our breath.
Why do you fear her? Lo, her laughing face
All rosy with the light of jocund grace!
A kind and lovely maiden culling flowers
In a sweet garden fresh with vernal showers,
This is the thing you fear, young portress bright
Who opens to our souls the worlds of light.
Is it because the twisted stem must feel
Pain when the tenderest hands its glory steal?
Is it because the flowerless stalk droops dull
And ghastly now that was so beautiful?
Or is it the opening portal’s horrid jar
That shakes you, feeble souls of courage bare?
Death is but changing of our robes to wait
In wedding garments at the Eternal’s gate.
—Sri Aurobindo
ONE-MINUTE WISDOM
SPEECHLESS
“Of what use is your learning and your devotion? Does a donkey become wise through living in a library or does a mouse acquire holiness from living in a church?”
“What is it, then, we need?”
“A heart.”
“How does one get that?”
The master would not say.
What could he say that they wouldn’t turn into a subject to be learned or an object of devotion?
-Anthony De Mello
QUOTE
“The only way that we can live is if we grow. The only way we can grow is if we change. The only way we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we are exposed is if we throw ourselves into the open.”
—C. Joybell
JUST FOR LAUGHS
NO PROBLEM
A man goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor, I have a serious problem. I can never remember anything.”
The doctor says, “That’s very serious indeed. How long have you had this problem?”
The man says, “What problem?”