Zen Story: The would be Zen master, who failed at Zen

A student, in a Christian school, dabbles with learning some Zen, in a near-by Zen monastery, but is stumped by a koan on stomping.

Mokhero Zenoski was a philosophy student at modern-day school, for the times. It was run by the churches, and it was heavily based around their religious ideas too.

He used to sneak out from his school confines to visit the nearby Zen monastery, as he wanted to compare what they were teaching him, to the Zen philosophy too.

They gave him a koan to work on in his spare time.

This was the well known koan:

"What noise does a stomping shoe make, if it stomps as itself?"

Mokhero knew that a stomping shoe will make different noises, depending in which type of material it is stomping in.

In water, it might make a splashing noise, in mud, a sloshing noise, and in air, perhaps some type of a noise too, but what is its own natural sound of its stomping?

This had him stomped for now too.

Is there such a thing as an original thought, a first thought, a first stomp?

When is the self the real self, when is anything it's primal original self?

We can have different aspects of ourselves, as he knew that there were gradations of self, in his psychology classes.

They talked about first, second, and third person psychologies, for example.

Zen, he placed under first person psychology, as it dealt with consciousness, introspection, self examination, meditation, etc.

Analysing someone using psychology theorems was second person psychology.

Third person psychology was using various methods, such as induced trances, through the use of hallucinogenic substances, or hypnosis.

There was some type of an external agent working behind it

Perhaps a koan stretched the gap between the two (or three, or possibly even more parts) apart, before enlightenment then broke the rubber band being stretched, and all persons (these psychology levels of persons) became united as one again then. 

This Zen student, or more would-be Zen student, never joined the Zen monastery, preferring to become a Catholic priest in the end for himself, but all of his life, he wondered if he had actually used too firm a heavy a foot to stomp this zen right out of himself.

Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com

Reviews

[alanwgraham]

Very good story Zenned. This is educational and humerous. I learned something about stomping although I realise this is only a vehicle for meditation. My wife complains I stomp too much but some of us are just stompers. If I focus I am able to not stomp like during the night if I have to get up so that I don't waken her up but then she doesn't know I'm not stomping because she's asleep. You can't win.
All the best.
Alan

[zennedpen]

Thanks, Alan.

Your stomping has you stomped for now then, because you have labeled yourself as a stomper.

The best stompers stomp as required, never too much, unless that is required too...lol...