The Throttling Way Of Teaching

By Staff

Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 13:40

One day as the Zen monk Rinzai was giving a sermon, his speech was interrupted by some disturbance. The master stopped and enquired what the matter was. One man stood up and asked him, “What is soul?" Rinzai took his staff and asked the crowd to part way as he proceeded to the questioner. The questioner on seeing the master approaching, started to tremble as he had not expected the master's answer in such a way.

Rinzai came to the man and seized his neck with both his hands and started to press it. The man's eyes bulged out and the master said, “Who are you? Close your eyes!" The man obeyed the master. Rinzai kept asking “Who are you?" The man at a point opened his eyes, laughed and bowed down to the master.

Rinzai was asked by someone if he would apply the same method of teaching to everybody. The master answered in the negative and clarified, “That man was ready. He was not just asking for the question's sake, he was ready. The first part was fulfilled; he was really asking. This was a life and death question to him: 'What is soul?' The first part was fulfilled completely. He was disillusioned completely of life, and he was asking, 'What is soul?' This life has proved just a death to him; now he is asking, 'What is life?' So no answer from me would have been meaningful. I helped him to just stand still in the present."