It is a story referred to as humorous, yet a direct one about a Zen abbot's training session at a given Japanese temple, the spiritual growth and also his interaction as far as his students and people are concerned.
"The purpose of practice", just like Morinaga wrote, "is never meant to increase the knowledge one has but only scrapping the scales out of one's ears. It is through thorough practice that one will end up seeing the reality. Regardless of the allegations that no existing medicine can cure fully, whatever prompts me to get realizing that actually I was a fool, is in actual fact, just such a medicine."
At the moment during when the author was training as a monk in a Zen monastery, he was brought into enlightenment with what he referred to as his idiocy, misconceptions that were due to his attachment to quite a narrow experience of knowledge. With what is referred to as fine sense of humor and patience that is commendable, Morinaga has to endure the rigors of sleepiness, days spend with an empty stomach, soundless meals while in the dining hall and the final blow, bearing with the master's strictness but still letting his dreams remain embedded in his brain.
Apparently the author is compelled to repeatedly firm up his resolve and actually solidify his given intention to maintain his practice while at the same time being dogged by his dreams cum feelings of superiority and at the same time inferiority. It is worth noting that in Zen practice, it is quite important to break the ego as it is apparent that there is no way around it.
In the sermon that happened to be the first one from teacher Zen, Morinaga noticed that in persons or even things, in general, nothing by the name trash that really exists. This given combination memoir and even wisdom resource, as per Belenda Attaway Yamakwa's translation, tends to provide an enlightening cum lively overview of Zen.
From a mere orphan to abbot, Morinaga's style of telling his ordeal is really interesting. His dreams are said to have been achieved considering the fact that before his death, he was a leader of Daitokuji Monastery and also headed the HaHanazono University, a primary facility for training Buddhist monks.
