Not Zen 108: Not Me

Lamar, Wikimedia Commons

Every Tribe

In the smallest of bison herds lived the largest, most powerful male, thick of shoulder, armed with horns, hooves, and heavy fur.  He led his throng from tundra to plains for foraging.  In the summer, the nearby males joined the rest of the group for the breeding season.  As in other such conclaves, each male or female concentrated on their rivalries during this time.
 
But even after mating season ended, members of the herd stayed focused on rivalries.  It was a trend that had continued for years.  All into the fall and through the winter, the problem grew.  It remained through the departure of the male herd.  It worsened when the males rejoined.  It was so prevalent that the lead male had to speak.
  
"I can't keep watch on the entire herd all of the time," he told the lead females.  "Even I must sleep. There are many grey wolves gathering.  Other bison need to fulfill their duties as adults."

"We see the wolves," said his most recent mate.  "And we watch you drive them off."

"When I was young, all adults pitched in to defend.  I don't think we can continue with only me and a few others."

Dusk arrived.  In the waning light, additional wolves emerged from the north.  As the lead male had done before, he gathered his allies. 

Lone wolves sometimes take down adult bison on their own.  They were powerful foes and, on this night, attackers outnumbered defenders.  The wolves stampeded the herd.  The lead bison dashed to protect the calves.  All of the young ones were slow on their feet.  The herd left them behind.  Predators swarmed to take the youngest.

One of the leader's allies, an old male, fell in the fierce defense and was killed by the wolves.  In the aftermath, the leader succeeded in rescuing the children.  Only four females and three grown males remained by his side for the duration.

When he brought the calves back to the main herd, he roared.

"Everyone must defend the children!" the male bellowed in his fury.  "Everyone!  It's is the duty of every adult.  What kind of herd doesn't  protect the young?"

"I have no children," said one male.

"My calf was born first.  He kept up," said a female.

"Listen to yourselves!"  The male stomped the ground.  "You all benefited from the herd when you were young.  You lived under the protection of the adults.  They took responsibility.  If they had left you to fend for yourself the way you left our calves this evening, you would be dead."

"The times were different."

"We have our own struggles," said a mother.

"A herd that doesn't care for its young will soon be old," he insisted.  "Then it will perish.  Next time, I expect you to look after the calves."

Over the course of an hour, he talked them into it.  Everyone agreed, whether due to his insistence or because they had been prompted to remember their youth, to take part in their mutual defense.  Even disgruntled bison remembered how they had been helped by the herd once.

By morning, a few wolves showed themselves again.  They came from the east and the north.  Adult bison swarmed to defend their young.  The predators hung back to watch the herd and study it for weakness.  Perhaps they felt satiated by their recent kill.  They waited.

In the following dusk, more wolves came.  The herd could not escape.  Some of the adults lost their courage.  In the morning, an attack by a lone wolf wounded a female.  The wolf escaped unharmed.  The leader and three others chased it to no avail.  

The lead male returned, troubled by the lack of herd spirit.  He reminded the adult bison of their promise to protect the calves.

That evening, a pack of wolves chased the herd. Again, the children fell behind.  Again, the leader and a few others mounted a defense.  Despite their efforts, one of the attackers wounded a calf.  Then four wolves latched onto and dragged down a female, possibly the calf's mother.

By the time the leader and his band of rescuers returned to the herd, they were trembling with exhaustion.  Their only consolation was that the wounded child had recovered.  She no longer bled and she seemed hardy enough to survive.  That was a victory.

"You were gone a long while," said the leader's recent mate, who had stayed with the great herd.  "A wolf came again.  We did not know what to do."

"You defended yourselves, I hope."

"Why were you not here?"

The leader described his situation.  He could not protect the whole herd.  No one could.  "You must take responsibility, all of you.  I realize now, that our herd must be weak.  It's not that our adults here aren't strong.  But the wolves follow us, our group, more than any other.  That must be because they know that we will give up our members to them."

"But it's the fault of the children themselves," said a female.  "They are too slow."

"Why would you expect children to fend for themselves?  You are the ones who are fully grown.  Calves fall behind because they are weak and small.  They need us to provide food, water, and protection."

"Then it's the fault of their parents.  The parents should provide."

"And if they cannot?  How long can we survive without helping one another?"  The male raised his voice to the crowd.  "Are we not, each of us, responsible to the rest?"

Silence was the response.  The leader had almost made up his mind to leave.  He decided to give them a last chance.

"Who is responsible for this child?" he called, hoping that the adults would call back to him in their acceptance of responsibility.

"Not me."

"Not me."

"Who is the mother?" a female asked.

The bull turned and left.  He had been their leader for so long, others tried to follow.  Whenever those who had answered 'not me' tried to join him, the bull drove them off.  He allowed those who helped the herd to remain by his side.  The others, he left to themselves.

Not Zen 107: Full Teacup

A teaching candidate won a position at a large university.  She was a wiry woman, energetic and animated as she spoke.  Her lectures sparked ideas, laughter, and gasps of understanding from her students.  After her first semester, her classes over-subscribed.  Her department chair noticed.  Although he was nearing retirement, he took an interest in new ideas in his field.  He decided to attend one of her classes.

He arrived early enough to get the first seat.  Soon, he found himself surrounded by students.  He raised his eyebrows when late arrivals brought chairs and placed them in the aisles.  Other students stood in the open doors.  He watched the teacher arrive.  She launched into her material.  Hands flew up.  She answered questions.  The department chair learned that her ideas did not agree with his but her arguments were well-formed and backed by research.  His face remained impassive.  He considered her take on matters that he'd once thought were settled.

Although he felt well-hidden in the crowd, by the end of the class the young teacher recognized her colleague.  She invited him to stay after the lecture to share a pot of tea.

They talked for a while in the young woman's office.  The old fellow did not seem much interested in his tea.  He let it rest on the table by his side.

"I found your talk quite instructive," he mused.  He rubbed his beard.  "You have innovative methods."

"Oh," the teacher blushed.  "I have nothing to teach one such as you, sir."

"Huh."  The old seemed to notice his tea at last.  He grabbed the cup.  "My drink has gone cold."

With a shaky hand, he held out the teacup to his younger colleague.  Obediently, his host picked up the teapot.  She started to pour.  With a yelp, she halted. 

"Professor, your cup is already full," the young teacher complained.

"I know.  You'll have to pour harder."

Not Zen 106: Safety

On an early summer day, a dog chased gray squirrels. The squirrels scattered and rested, then scattered again as the dog raced through them. Eventually, one squirrel knocked over another. The dog caught the fallen one. It shook and killed its prey.

The fallen squirrel was the father of a newborn. His mate watched as he died. She hid her pup's eyes.

"Don't look!" she hissed.

"What's happening?"

"Nothing. I'll keep you safe."

"I can't move, mama. You're sitting on me."

By the next day, her dismay over the loss of her mate had grown into a determination that the incident would not be repeated with her child. She vowed to keep him safe in their nest, a hollow cleft between branches. 

When her pup wanted to leave the tree for food, she stopped him. She brought back acorns for two from her dead mate's cache. When he wanted to run and play, she pushed him back to the nest. When she caught him hanging upside down from their branch, she scolded him. When he learned to misbehave as she foraged for food, she gave up her work and relied on her sister in a neighboring oak tree.

"You're spoiling that child," said her sister.

"He does plenty," she replied. "But I make sure he's safe when he does."

"How will he grow up? Every time he asks you if he can do something, you do it for him."

"He's safer that way."

A month later, when her pup asked where he could hide nuts for himself, she allowed him to watch as she did it. He didn't go farther than the base of the tree. When a cat came out to hunt at dusk, the neighbors came out to watch. But the mother did not want her child to see. She hid him deep in her nest.

"What was that thing?" he asked.

His mother blocked his view. "You don't need to know. Stay where it's safe."

Her pup protested but he didn't fight.

By the time her pup reached maturity, he'd given up his protests. He'd come to expect that his mother would protect him. Once as his aunt was visiting, she sighted another cat. She showed it to him and took the opportunity to explain about predators.

"Don't tell him about murder!" his mother cried. "It gives him bad dreams."

"But he needs to know," said his aunt. "Everyone does."

"Go back to your own tree!"

In the late summer, the young squirrels left their parents' nests. Her son was the last. She didn't want to let him but she had to admit that he'd gotten too big for their nest. Her child saw what the other squirrels had done to find hollows in trunks and branches. Those were all long taken. He saw the nests others had built from twigs and leaves.

"How can I build my home?" he wondered.

His mother built his home, not too far from hers. All autumn, as the squirrels gathered food for the winter, her child did his best. He roamed cautiously. He was nearly killed when he failed to flee from a housecat. He found acorns all around but didn't know how to store them. He'd only watched his mother do it before, so his caches were easy to find. Other squirrels looted them. As he grew more desperate to gather food, he lost some of it forever as he ranged too far and buried too deeply.

During the winter, his mother fed both of them. They came close to starvation. They were the first squirrels out to forage in the spring. Yet they both lived thanks to the mild weather.

"Mother, how can I find a mate?" he asked one day.

"They're all around. And you're healthy. Why have none chosen you?"

She consulted her sister. Her sister pointed out that the young squirrel had been tested by mates and by rivals. He always failed.

"Help me find him a mate, sister. Please," she begged. It took a long while, but his aunt found a lonely female who was willing to meet the grown pup. But the interview ended abruptly.

"He can't care for himself," the female said. "So how could he care for my children?"

"This is a shame," his mother said. After the female had left, she turned on her son. She cried, "How did you get this way?"

"Well, it took a lot of effort to make him like this, didn't it?" said his aunt.

Not Zen 105: In Evil Circumstance

Rome overthrew Emperor Tarquinius. The senate ruled.

In the summer after his overthrow, Tarquinius endured the heat to ride across the lands of Italy. He gathered allies to retake the empire. The strongest of his collaborators was the Etruscan king, Lars Porsena of Clusium. He was a burly man, tough, well-spoken, and his own general. It was Porsena, not Tarquinius, who led the combined forces. In thick bronze armor, he rode at the front of his own three legions with supporting forces behind.

Porsena captured town after town. He annexed Roman territories and made them his own. He took Roman hostages. Soon, he besieged the city of Rome. But at the end of the fighting season, the war had fallen into a stalemate. Porsena retreated to friendly lands. He negotiated with the Roman senate.

Meanwhile, the Roman hostages labored in camps. They had a doctor to care for them. He was young and healthy. Yet one day he lay down in the grass next to his tent and would not get up.

One of the hostage women, Cloelia, came with her sisters and chaperone to persuade the doctor to rise.

"I can't give aid to evil any longer," he told them. "I save men but then Porsena kills them. I heal women but he forces them into slavery or marriage. There's no longer any point to what I do."

"Rebellion, I could understand," said Cloelia, who had been raised on the stoic virtues. "But not despair. Don't give up."

"You will be forced to marry, too," he said. "You're young and noble. You'll be forced or you'll be killed."

"Perhaps. In the meantime, I'll do what I can. You're our doctor. I understand that the Etruscans hate you and call you names. They throw stones. But if our enemies kill you for your kindness to others, then at least you will have died honorably. I'll fight to protect you if the moment allows it. That's the only honorable thing I can do for you and my sisters. But until then, someone else's evil is no excuse for yours."

"Will you fight and die for others? You, a girl?"

"Keep us alive for another week. Then we'll see."

Within an hour, the doctor rose and returned to work.

Cloelia was aware that most of the Roman hostages were to be ignored by the treaty between Porsena and Rome. Some men would be ransomed but no women. Cloelia and her friends had been separated from their local sweethearts, many of whom had been murdered. So the women would be raped or forced to marry Clusium men or both. 

The young woman gathered spies and allies in camp. She kept her plans close and kept an eye on the guards.

A week later, she grabbed the young doctor as she escaped with troops of women in tow. She commanded her force like an army. She deployed scouts. She eluded her Etruscan pursuers by crossing rivers and hiding in woods. She packed food on donkeys and dragged tents behind along so that her women would not be betrayed by the need to visit Etruscan towns.

In a few weeks, she was in Rome. Her band of hostages rejoiced.  But they arrived to find that a treaty had been signed. Cloelia and her friends had been given to Lars Porsena. Their lives had been decided.

Porsena demanded the return of his hostages. The Roman senate agreed. They threw Cloelia in jail along with her fellow maidens and the men who had helped them escape. The senators knew they needed to send Cloelia back or face another seige by the Etruscans. It was the Roman army that marched her band of noblewomen to the enemy camp.

"To be betrayed by our own countrymen is an evil that I can't stand," complained the doctor.

"Their evil is still no excuse," Cloelia replied.

"Are you clinging to your honor?"

"This betrayal is no excuse for me, either."

The prisoners marched, hands bound behind their backs, into the Etruscan war camp. The great general Porsena stood at the head of a column of soldiers. He saluted them.

"Who is the girl he led this mob?" he demanded.

No one had their hands free but they all looked to young Cloelia.

"Well done," announced Porsena. "This prison was guarded like any other. Only you escaped and with many of your fellow maidens as well. Therefore, I will grant you, Cloelia, the right to free half of the male hostages. Many will not receive a ransom, so they will have to be killed. Save who you will."

The choice was a great burden but Cloelia decided to free the younger half of the prisoners. That way, she included the poorest and also her friend, the doctor.

But the doctor refused to leave.

"I will work here," he announced to Porsena and Cloelia, "and care for the sick and the wounded. I will heal all who have been grieved by the war. The evils of battle do not excuse me from my duties. Cloelia had made me understand that this is so."

"If you're determined to heal, I can feed you," Porsena grudged. "But you must know that we will kill some of those you save."

"Nevertheless," said the doctor with his hands still bound behind his back.

Not Zen 104: The Main Thing

A young woman sat in a bookstore with her older brother. In front of them, a lady in a trenchcoat scavenged the pages of a discarded newspaper. Dark spots covered the lady's hands. She coughed, a wet sound.

The young woman flipped the pages of her religious studies text. Next to her waited a pile of thick tomes on various faiths and philosophies. On the other side of that stack sat her brother with the arts section of a newspaper. He read the lyrics to a song. Then he set it down in his lap. He meditated. As he ended his meditation and began the next article in the paper, his sister put a hand on his knee.

"You've been at peace with yourself for years," she said. She winced as the coughing of the lady across from them started again.

Eyebrows raised, her brother waited.

"Are you enlightened or what?"

"Ah." He nodded. He closed the section he'd been reading. "I'm practicing, making progress."

"There are two different schools of enlightenment, right?"

"There are many schools and also there are approaches that aren't taught in a school." He chose one of her unopened texts and flipped the pages. He set it down. She showed him the pages of her current book.

"The writers don't agree." She pointed to a long passage and a picture next to it of a monk in a saffron robe. "But you've put this stuff into action. It's part of your life. You know what works. Is sitting meditation the main thing or is the Eightfold Path the main thing?"

"It's not right to focus too much on the sense of present awareness." He grimaced at the picture of meditation. "That's connection to the De. It's important but it's not the core."

"The important part is the Eightfold Path, then."

"Not even the whole Eightfold Path. I should be clear that I'm talking about me, my own, limited experience. At the heart of everything for me is the freedom from attachments. When you give up worldly expectations, you're at peace. You're almost there."

"Don't you need to integrate the rest of the principals?"

A heavy cough interrupted them. The woman in the trenchcoat had edged around her table and crept up on their spot near the wall. She put a hand over her mouth as if she might cough again. With the thumb and forefinger of her other hand, she pinched the corner of the newspaper section.

"How rude. Ma'am, my brother's reading that."

Without a word, again the lady tugged gently at the newspaper.

"You can have it," her brother said to the lady. He rose from his chair and gave her the section she wanted. The lady in the coat clutched it to her chest for a moment. She smiled. She glanced from brother to sister then bowed her head in gratitude.

"Even children live by the principles," her brother said. He sat back down, empty-handed. "They are always with us."

Not Zen 103: Job Well Done

Mildeep - Wikimedia Commons

Job Well Done

A colony of cerulean arbor birds, distantly related to bower birds, decreased in their numbers over the generations. Finally, there came at time when two great waves of sickness swept over the island where they lived. At the close of the second wave, six of the seven remaining birds fell dead.

The arbor birds had long ago seen a diminishing of their once-great powers of flight. Yet they were not yet flightless. The remaining bird flew to other islands in the sea. On those other islands, the remaining arbor birds had also fallen to sickness.  There were no others of his kind that he found alive, only a few bones. For a year, the lone arbor bird searched. Then he returned to his home island.

He decided to wait there for lost members of his flock to return. Wild birds had come in from outside of the island chain before. It could happen again.

To occupy his time, he built nests. That had always been his calling. Now he let it consume him.  Weaving complex patterns of reeds took a great deal of energy and concentration. Fortunately, materials were plentiful. Feeding took hardly any of his time. When he built an especially fine nest, he said to himself,

"Should a female return, she will admire my artistry and craftsmanship."

No female came. In fact, no bird of size visited the island, only warblers, finches, wrens, and gulls.  Years passed. His hopes waned. He explored the uses of color in woven flowers, which produced vibrant blues and pinks but did not last, in living plants, which did endure, and in the red and purple dyes produced by local mollusks, which were easy to find and stayed where he put them.

His nests grew large and stately. He produced walls that shimmered violet and indigo in the sun. He wove images of birds into them, at first himself, cerulean in color as he observed his form in calm waters but also his friends and family as he remembered them. He interleaved the shapes of gulls and wrens into other homes. Eventually he included images of starfish and other beach creatures.

"Even if it's only a male who returns," he told himself, "at least that male will see the beauty of all this."

More years passed and the arbor bird grew heavier with food and age. At the height of his powers, he had ventured to each island once a year to see if anyone had visited. Now he didn't bother. He spent the time on his art.

His nests were no longer homes, in truth. He experimented with shapes and styles, laying some of them open to the sun in a way he wouldn't if he'd meant for them to shelter eggs. That let him construct structures with flowers that bloomed in the middle, that showed different patterns of light and dark at different times of day, and that glowed phosphorescently with algae he kept alive with a rivulet of water.

He built a flowered home for a great colony of ants. He wove patterns in the leaves of trees.

"Should I stop?" he wondered. "No one will ever see any of this. I can admit that now. But the forms are beautiful. Making them feels right."

In his old age, he took to flying again each day. He moved from place to place around the perimeter and through the heart of his home island. When he saw a particularly good work of art, he would alight on a high branch and watch it for a while to let joy fill his heart. Sometimes he would chuckle at his early efforts. Sometimes he would shake his head at a creation that was particularly fine or mysterious. He could surprise himself, on rare occasions, when he found a structure that he'd built but didn't remember.  What had he been thinking? Why had he woven a pattern so complex? Why had he built a structure so small, so simple, yet not a nest?

One day, he sat and studied a piece of art that changed with the sunlight. At sunset, he said to himself,

"This is enough. Even though this will fade, even though I will die, to have done this is enough."

Not Zen 102: Raging Water

In a long, narrow stream there lived a community of crawfish. Amid the shale and clay, among the sands and pebbles and algae, they hid in their lairs and hunted young carp, catfish, and minnows. A crawfish, newly established in her territory, staked out her spot under a long rock. The water was clear and fast.

For a while, she waited while fish glided above her. The current had changed from the day before. It carried her prey above her and to her left. She shifted positions. Finally, a large minnow slipped into her cove from above the rock. She struck at its tail.

Whether the fish felt her coming or whether it got lucky in the current, she missed her strike. With a flick of its fins, the minnow escaped to the shallows. The crawfish howled with frustration. Not content to let the moment slip away, she emerged from her position to chase her prey.

She and the minnow dodged and struck at each another. They stirred up pebbles and silt. The cloudy waters made it difficult for the minnow to evade her but made it hard for her to strike, too. Downstream, the rest of community noticed the disturbance. Even in the steady churn of the currents, they could tell there was a problem. One of her neighbors crept upstream to find out what was going on.

"Why are you thrashing about, sister?" she called.

"I am trying to catch a fish, of course," the crawfish replied from the murk. "The waters are so muddy that I can't see a thing. I track and fight, track and fight. If I could see again, I would make an end of it."

"The cause of the muddy waters is you, sister."

"Not at all. It's the fish."

"Your imagined battle is long over." The visitor could see over the territory of her neighbor. There were no minnows, nor were there any trails in the silt to reveal where such a creature once swam. The clouds of disturbance centered on the thrashing crawfish. "Your fish fled."

"It's here somewhere," said the crawfish. "I'm sure of it."

"Anger has clouded your vision. Test yourself. Test me. Make yourself at peace for a moment, sister, and see if everything doesn't become clear again."

Not Zen 101: The Shame of Praise

from: wikimedia commons, pwbaker

 The Shame of Praise

At a meeting of many religious groups, there was a procession each morning from the lodgings to the conference halls. Monks, nuns, and other clerical figures marched along a city street for a few blocks before they could meet and debate.

One of the attendees was a Zen acolyte. On his first morning walk, he stopped to give assistance to a woman who needed help putting a large, black dog back onto its leash. A group of bishops, priests, nuns, and monks watched while the student hooked the dog to its chain. The lowly acolyte was upbraided by his Zen master for slowing the progress of the group.

“Can't you see that you're delaying important people?” yelled the Zen master.

“Being who they are, they will wait for an act of kindness,” replied the unrepentant student. He seemed to pay his master's criticism no mind. The representatives of other religions nodded in agreement with him. They often disagreed with the Zen master anyway.

On the following morning, the student stopped the procession to open doors for a pair of men who carried a heavy couch between them. This time, to the surprise of all, his Zen master praised his acolyte's kindness effusively even while the boy held the doors.

“They should thank you, those men there,” he told his student. But the student was so flustered that he let go and nearly hit the last man with the edge of the door. He turned away, flush with embarrassment. He tried not to listen to the gratitude of the working men or to his master.

The other religious leaders shook their heads.

“Yesterday, I thought your master was crazy,” said one as he pulled the boy aside. The group resumed its march. The acolyte and the other man lagged at the back of the procession. “Now I think he's teaching you a lesson. He's teaching all of us. Look, you're a good person, aren't you?”

“I-I'm trying to be,” answered the student uncertainly.

“Well, I think you are. You're doing right things for right reasons.”

“But my master was mad about that yesterday.”

“He knew it wouldn't stop you from helping other people. But he also knew how you would react to his praise today. It made you embarrassed. And you stopped helping because of the praise. You let go.”

“I did? Oh, yes.”

“You're a fine person when you do right things in the face of criticism. But when you are enlightened, you will do the right thing at the right time, regardless of criticism or praise. You will be affected by neither.”

“And don't forget to say thank you when praised,” said a nun who had dropped behind the main group and had overheard.

“Shh,” said the Zen master. He turned from his walking and raised a finger to his lips.

“Thank you,” said the student, not at all quieted. His master turned back, laughing, to his partners in the procession.

Not Zen 100: Wrong Questions

Sun Flare by Yoko Nekonomania

Two women hiked through the woods in the spring. Flowers grew on either side of their path. Some had been planted. Others had taken root from wild varieties.

Both women had studied the ways of enlightenment, one of them for most of her life. During their hike, the less experienced practitioner asked the more experienced one a question. As is traditional, her teacher unasked the question. She explained that it was not the right line of inquiry.

Her student reminded her, "There are no stupid questions."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

"Only in a limited sense. What about ..." The teacher turned to a bush full of thorns for her example, "... this question: 'why do roses smell purple when they grow on the surface of the sun?'"

"That's nonsense." The younger woman folded her arms. She didn't laugh. "It's not a fair question."

"So you can at least agree that some questions are nonsense. Good."

The younger woman's brow furled. "Are you saying my question is nonsense?"

"Human minds are wonderful things." The older one resumed their walk, hands clasped behind her back. They left the rose bushes behind. "Our brains let us interrogate abstract matters. So our questions can be based on models of reality that are, in fact, wrong. We take some of those questions for granted. But the fact that we ask them shows how off the track we can become."

"Like me."

"Yes. Me, too," she allowed. They passed a chrysanthemum bush. She caressed one of the flowers. "We are not just thinking wrong. We are not just taking our first step wrong. We have a problem before we've started thinking about taking our first step. We've been given a set of sensory illusions and learned assumptions that bear little relation to how things are."

They spent a moment admiring the bushes. Then they strolled further along their path past patches of lilies in bloom.

"You're saying that my questions come out of a wrong impression of the world?" The younger woman swept her arm to indicate the beauty around them.

"So wrong that it can be difficult to contemplate. It is like thinking that this white lily is white."

"But it is white. I can see it is." She press her fingertip against a petal. "Anyway, you just said so."

"To people, it may seem white. We now understand that it does not seem that way to a bee. They see things differently in lights at higher wavelengths"

"In the ultraviolet." The student nodded and moved along.

"Yes, thank you. Our senses are limited. Our minds our limited. Those are why your impressions of the world are wrong. They are impressions you share with everyone, including me.  I am trying to tell you the correct regard for those impressions."

"All I asked is who you think created the universe."

"And the depth of the wrong assumptions in the question remains astounding."

Not Zen 99: Teasing

A herd of mustangs ruled a peninsula with lands bordered by the forest and the sea. The horses raced from grasslands to beaches. They swam in shallow waters, played in the sands by the freshwater streams, and rested in the shades of oak and maple groves. For years, they followed their dappled lead mare. She made the herd decisions. She found them cordgrass and giant reeds to eat. She uncovered safe ferns, explored shrubs and sweet maple saplings, and located new springs of fresh water.

One summer, this boss mare gave birth to a chestnut foal. Although her son was healthy, he was born late in the spring. For months, he was the youngest in the herd.

"Why do the other foals pick on me?" he asked her one day.

"They're trying to play," she said. "You're the smallest now. You're strong and soon you'll be big. Your feeling of being picked on will pass."

She pushed her son with her nose. It was a gesture she had used with her other children. She had nudged them playfully for as many years as she could remember. It got the same response from her chestnut son as it got from her earlier foals. He laughed.

Weeks went by. Her son grew strong. But he did not grow out of the teasing.

"Why does everyone hate me?" he wondered.

"They don't," said his mother. She nuzzled him, nose to nose. "Now that you're strong, you are playing too rough with the smaller horses. You need to be more gentle."

"They're not gentle with me!" he complained.

"Nevertheless," she replied.

More weeks passed, then months. Her son grew stronger. He grew wilder. His father, a roan stallion, barely tolerated the immature males. Her son made himself especially difficult to endure. Other immature males teased and tested one another. They bickered, they pushed, and they nipped at the other young horses. That was hard enough. But with her son, the teasing turned into fighting. Others would laugh and chase one another out of play. Her son turned angry and violent.

"Now even the stallion hates me," he said.

The mare remained silent. Her son had observed the truth. He had developed a bad relationship to the other males, his father included. He would find no help anywhere but his mother. He'd made enemies even among other mares.

"If you could refrain from violence in reaction to teasing," she offered, "in time everything would be better."

"I'm just teasing back."

"When you do it, it's bullying. Don't you see the difference?"

"There is no difference."

"Ah," she said. She stepped closer to him. "I can see that you don't understand what the other horses are doing. When you were the smallest, you were teased in a way that makes you misunderstand your situations now."

"I tried to stop the teasing. I told you that."

"No, that's the wrong way. The other horses' feelings are hurt when you don't tease or don't allow them to tease you. You are showing no trust in them."

"What does teasing have to do with trust?"

"When you don't respond correctly, it shows that you don't trust them. Then they become angry. If you let someone nip your tail or knock you in the shoulder, you show that you trust they will do you no harm. It's a matter of confidence on your part. You need to understand they're not trying to fight you. A gentle poke between friends helps to establish trust."

"Teasing is mean."

"It can be. It can be cruel or a test of strength. Usually, it's neither. Teasing is the first step to establishing friendship. When you allow teasing, you show trust in another's intentions. It is a judgment that the other horse is honorable. When you react appropriately with a similar push or nip, you show that you, too, can be trusted."

"This is a strange way of thinking, mother."

"You haven't thought this way before, so you've overreacted. You pushed the teasers too hard. You've been hurtful. That's a double violation of trust. The other horses expect you to push them or chase them, not to kick them or shout insults."

"Is that why everyone's angry?"

"When other horses your age stopped teasing you so much, you thought that was good. I did, too. But we were wrong. It was a warning sign. They no longer teased you in order to make friends with you. They approached you only when they wanted to do you harm."

"What can I do?"

"Approach them. Tease them. Let them tease you back. Earn their trust." She pushed her son with her nose. He snorted.

She nipped his mane. He laughed.