The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
- Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

It is “wiser” to be safe and certain rather than finding yourself in uncharted waters.
- Ganz

We work and spend all the way to our graves without ever bothering to ask the big questions.
- Ganz

It is equally offensive to speed a guest who would like to stay and to detain one who is anxious to leave.
- Homer (800 BC - 700 BC)

In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.
- Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

Today we were apart, and I felt as if a piece of my heart was gone as well. How difficult it is to know you are not nearby. I ache to touch you, to run my fingers through your hair, to caress your being, your soul. You are the sweetness that courses through my veins; the same sweetness that fills my life…

I feel cold. Not even the sun can wrap its arms around me the way your love wraps its warmth. I am one, alone without you. Oh, my love, no one can take your place by my side. Together, entwined souls, we become for eternity. If you would just return…

Do not linger, for in your absence I become paler. My sustenance fades, and my destiny seeks your face. Circumstances have separated us, but our love will never be divided. I love you from the depths of my soul: always and forever…

In the early days of the Meiji era there lived a well-known wrestler called O-nami, Great Waves.

O-nami was immensly strong and knew the art of wresting. In his private bouts he defeated even his teacher, but in public was so bashful that his own pupils threw him.

O-nami felt he should go to a Zen master for help. Hakuju, a wandering teacher, was stopping in a little temple nearby, so O-nami went to see him and told him of his great trouble.

“Great Waves is your name,” the teacher advised, “so stay in this temple tonight. Imagine that you are those billows. You are no longer a wrestler who is afraid. You are those huge waves sweeping everything before them, swallowing all in their path. Do this and you will be the greatest wrestler in the land.”

The teacher retired. O-nami sat in meditation trying to imagine himself as waves. He thought of many different things. Then gradualy he turned more and more to the feeling of waves. As the night advanced the waves became larger and larger. They swept away the flowers in their vases. Even the Buddha in the shrine was inundated. Before dawn the temple was nothing but the ebb and flow of an immense sea.

In the morning the teacher found O-nami meditating, a faint smile on his face. He patted the wrestler’s shoulder. “Now nothing can disturb you,” he said. “You are those waves. You will sweep everything before you.”

The same day O-nami entered the wrestling contests and won. After that, no one in Japan was able to defeat him.

Tanzan wrote sixty postal cards on the last day of his life, and asked an attendant to mail them. Then he passed away.

The cards read:

I am departing from this world.

This is my last announcement.

          Tanzan
July 27, 1892

Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation with a certain Zen master.

Eshun was very pretty even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her. One of them wrote her a love letter, insisting upon a private meeting.

Eshun did not reply. The following day the master gave a lecture to the group, and when it was over, Eshun arose. Addressing the one who had written her, she said: “If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now.”

The master Bankei’s talks were attended not only by Zen students but by persons of all ranks and sects. He never quoted sutras nor indulged in scholastic dissertations. Instead, his words were spoken directly from his heart to the hearts of his listeners.

His large audiences angered a priest of the Nichiren sect because the adherents had left to hear about Zen. The self-centered Nichiren priest came to the temple, determined to debate with Bankei.

“Hey, Zen teacher!” he called out. “Wait a minute. Whoever respects you will obey what you say, but a man like myself does not respect you. Can you make me obey you?”

“Come up beside me and I will show you,” said Bankei.

Proudly the priest pushed his way through the crowd to the teacher.

Bankei smiled. “Come over to my left side.”

The priest obeyed.

“No,” said Bankei, “we may talk better if you are on the right side. Step over here.”

The priest proudly stepped over to the right

“You see,” observed Bankei, “you are obeying me and I think you are a very gentle person. Now sit down and listen.”