[ Great Waves ]

5th Feb 2002

A wrestler named O-Nami, "great waves," was immensely strong and highly skilled in the art of wrestling. In private he defeated even his very teacher, but in public his own young pupils could throw him.

In his trouble he went to a Zen master who was stopping at a nearby temple by the sea, and asked for counsel.

"Great Waves is your name," said the master, "so stay in this temple tonight and listen to the waves of the sea. Imagine you are those waves, forget you are a wrestler and become those huge waves sweeping everything before them."

O-Nami remained. He tried to think only of the waves, but he thought of many things. Then gradually he did think only of the waves. They rolled larger and larger as the night wore on. They swept away the flowers in the vases before the Buddha, they swept away the vases. Even the bronze Buddha was swept away. By dawn the temple was only surging water, and O-Nami sat there with a faint smile on his face.

That day he entered the public wrestling contest and won every bout, and from that day no one in Japan could ever throw him.

 

[Bruce's remark:

'Then gradually he did think only of the waves. They rolled larger and larger as the night wore on. They swept away the flowers in the vases before the Buddha, they swept away the vases. Even the bronze Buddha was swept away.'- Not that it really happened - it happened only to O-Nami. If you had been in that temple during that time you would not have seen the surging water in the temple - it was happening only to O-Nami. It was happening in a totally different dimension of his being.

'By dawn the temple was only surging water, and O-Nami sat there with a faint smile on his face.'- He became a buddha! The same faint smile that one day came to Buddha under the bodhi tree must have come to O-Nami. Suddenly he was no more the waves, he is the ocean now.

We are all great waves of the ocean. We may have forgotten it, but the ocean has not forgotten us - we are in the ocean. And the strength of the great wave is possible only when the wave knows that it is a wave of a great, infinite ocean.]

 

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