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Here's a story I like:

 

In a village where the great Zen Master Hakuin was

living, a girl became

pregnant. Her father bullied her for the name of her

lover, and, in the

end, to escape punishment, she told him it was Hakuin.

 

The father said no more, but when the time came and

the child was born,

he at once took the baby to Hakuin and threw it down.

"It seems that

this is your child," he said, and he piled on every

insult and sneer at

the disgrace of the affair.

 

The Zen Master only said, "Oh, is that so?" and took

the baby in his

arms. Wherever he went thereafter, he took the baby,

wrapped in the

sleeve of his ragged robe. During rainy days and

stormy nights he would

go out to beg milk from the neighboring houses. Many

of his

disciples, considering him fallen, turned against him

and left. And

Hakuin said not a word.

 

Meantime the mother found she could not bear the agony

of separation

from her child. She

confessed the name of the real father, and her own

father rushed to

Hakuin and prostrated himself, begging over and over

for forgiveness.

 

Hakuin said only, "Oh, is that so?" and gave him the

child back.

 

This is acceptance. This is tathata. Whatsoever life

brings is okay,

absolutely okay. This is the

mirrorlike quality-- nothing is good, nothing is bad,

all is divine.

Accept life as it is. Accepting it, desires disappear,

tensions

disappear, discontent disappears. Accepting it as it

is, one starts

feeling very joyful and for no reason at all.

 

When joy has a reason, it is not going to last long.

When joy is without

any reason, it is going to be there forever.

 

 

Jai Ma,

Jyotsna

 

 

 

 

 

 

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