A Zen Parable For When You Forget What’s Important in Life
By: Joe Hunt
Tags: Self Improvement, Mindfulness, Life Lessons, Life, Self

So let’s get to the real dilemma. How could this so-called Zen Master be so content that not only did he not feel exposed or embarrassed removing his clothes in front of a complete stranger, but he was able to willingly and even gladly hand them over to them?

Would you give the clothes off your back to someone who snuck into your house in the middle of the night?

Clothes maybe don’t hold the same value here as they do to an old hut-dwelling Zen Master. Most of us have wardrobes full of them. So instead of clothes, consider something that carries a similar sentiment: something that by giving it away would make you feel naked and exposed and vulnerable.

Would you give your laptop or heaven forbid your phone to the thief?

Would you give all your smartwatches and espresso machines and other devices to someone who turned up in your home and clearly needed them more than you?

Again, if you’re anything like me, the only thing you’re going to give them is a knuckle sandwich (more like a few panic-stricken slaps as I run for the door).

This person broke into your house and invaded your privacy. Not least they probably scared the heck out of you and put your family at risk.

Anyways, they’re probably high on glue and won’t remember any of this tomorrow.

So then, with all this in mind, how is it that the Zen Master still had the strength of will, the fearlessness, and the complete selflessness to not act like a maniacal and territorial caveman, but more like a saint?

Maybe he saw the poor lowly thief and took pity on him? Maybe he didn’t need clothes to keep him warm and dry because they’re impermanent and the moon is more than enough anyway?

In the flash instance in which the parable happens, there was no chance for Ryokan to consider any of this.

He merely responded to nothing other than what was happening.

This might sound careless. Short-sighted. Weak. A complete disregard for his own personal wellbeing and integrity.

But that’s not what was happening. It’s just an interpretation from one perspective of what may have been happening.

More specifically, it’s the narrative of, “Oh God! There’s one of those crime statistics in MY house and they are ruining MY life that I worked so hard for.”

This is a common storyline that’s drilled into many of us. Everyone has to take responsibility for their own actions and for their own livelihoods. If you don’t, no one is going to help you. It’s a cruel world out there and if you’re not tough enough, it will eat you alive.

And yet, in this parable, Ryokan showed none of this hostility towards the world. He didn’t reflexively see the person in his hut as a threat, or even see the situation as something “bad” or unfortunate.

This is because he didn’t see the event as happening to him. He wasn’t the helpless victim at the hands of some evil villain or the unlucky fool at the center of some terrible robbery. It wasn’t about him.

He held no pre-judgment or ownership over the situation. There was no robbery taking place. There was no thief in his hut. There wasn’t even a “his hut” that could be invaded or any “thing” of his that could be stolen.

One evening, while he was away, a thief snuck into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him.

All the Zen Master sees is what is happening.

And what is happening is there is most probably what appeared to be a scared, anxious, lonely-looking person in front of him who, in many ways, may have reminded him of himself.

In such a situation, the person is not an enemy because they have not intruded. They are not a stranger because they are a fellow, flawed human. They are also therefore not presumed to be dangerous and not immediately feared.

Strangely, for the person in the hut, they found themselves without anything to steal. Stranger still, even if the hut was full of goodies, it wasn’t even a robbery situation where they could unwillingly take something from someone else.

But still, they had gone in there with the intention to take something that belonged to someone else.

Or had they?

“You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty-handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away.

It’s rare that someone who finds themselves in such a situation has consciously chosen to be there. It’s unlikely they set out in life or even that night with the intention to steal from others and be a thief.

Ryokan sees this because he didn’t see the intruder through the lens of the many ideas and judgments that may have typically been bestowed upon them.

It’s easier to classify people by their actions and call them good or bad as opposed to seeing them as they stand. Inferring intent and, therefore, what kind of person someone is from their actions takes much less energy than acknowledging and holding all the complexities and disparities and paradoxes and injustices of life.

Life is much easier when there’s something or someone to blame and you don’t have to think too much about it.

So, to Ryokan, this was not some strange and malicious thief in his home. They were not a manifestation of all Ryokan had read in the news along with all his fears and insecurities. They were not another inconvenience, another stroke of bad luck, another reason why his brother’s or whoever’s life was going better than his.

It was a person clearly caught up in complex circumstances and in dire need. It wasn’t a personal attack on Ryokan. Even if it was planned. But at the same time, it was incredibly personal and intimate.

What led the person to end up in that situation is entirely unknown at this point and impossible to know. As is much of life, the circumstances may have largely been out of their hands. When you can see and accept this reality in yourself, you can see it in everyone. Who the thief was in the situation could have easily been the other way around.

The Master sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, “ I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

Is sitting in the nude under the moon more spiritual than having material possessions?

Well, of course it’s not spiritual if it’s after a night of heavy drinking and you’ve somehow managed to lose or writhe free of all your clothes. It’s only spiritual if you chose to do it or if you sacrificed something to be there, right?

To think that the act of Ryokan is somehow following a universal law or hierarchy of importance is to miss the point. That one should always give to others if they are in need or that nature is more sacred than material things is not what Zen teaches.

On another occasion, or if Ryokan had more time with the person, he might have offered them some tea. Or, if he was quick on his feet, he might have tried to rob the robber themself. That would’ve really confused them.

There’s no ultimate lesson Ryokan was trying to teach. He wasn’t giving the person a moral lesson. To give them his clothes is simply what occurred to him at that moment, so he did it.

He wasn’t concerned with what might come of being stark naked (Although presumably, he didn’t give the person his undies, if he wore any). Maybe he needed new clothes anyway. Maybe a tailor would come along tomorrow and make him some new ones. Maybe he knew a tailor. Maybe he was a tailor. What happened afterward, the nudity and the moon-bathing, are beside the point.

There was nothing Ryokan could give to the person that would satisfy their hunger and solve their troubles. Not even the moon. He knew this. And therefore he wasn’t hindered by ideas about how he should treat this person or what he should do or what’s the best, most morally correct thing to do in such a situation.

He met the person as they were. Seeing them not by what is apparent according to their actions or the ideas of society or his own judgments about the world. But seeing them as they are, for who they are.

Who knows, maybe for the first time.

After all, where is the thief in a place where there's nothing to steal and no one to steal from?

Where is the stranger in a home that doesn’t belong to anyone?

Where is the trouble in a world where nothing you need can be given to you or taken away from you?

Living in such a world, Ryokan found himself in a position where he could offer someone something.

A kind gesture that had no purpose, no motive, no meaning outside of being fully present for that moment in which this person happened to come by his little hut and pay him a visit.