Discover Top Posts Tagged with #red monk

Painting by Aleister Crowley. It shows four monks in red robes carrying a black goat over snowy mountains.

#aleister crowley #aleistercrowley #mystical #red monk #black goat #occult

Monaciello

by DCF

#david chance fragale #illustration #animation #monaciello #red monk

Apple’s new language Swift sees ‘Unprecedented’ rise

By Nate Swanner Swift, or Objective-C? That’s a choice many Developers and learning the craft are entertaining, and it’s quickly (swiftly?) becoming harder to decide. Though Objective-C is still dug-in and widely used for iOS and OS X development, Swift is coming up fast (pun intended). A new report by Red Monk details the performance of programming languages on sites like GitHub and Stack …

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A monk walks through Punakha Dzong

Bhutan

2013

#monk #buddhist #red monk #punakha #dzong #bhutanese monk #photography #bhutan #land of the thunder dragon #travel #wanderer #earthonaut #pcsurgo #pierce csurgo

It is possible to become so quiet yourself that you no longer hear others. This is the only lofty goal and it is folly.

The Red Monk

#Red Monk #Enlightenment #False enlightenment

The Red Monk Claps Three Times

This one is Japanese. Not the earliest instance of The Red Monk in Buddhist folklore, but I feel like it's a good introduction. I placed some questions that usually occur to me while reading this story at the bottom of the post, if anyone's interested. -Dee

There was, at one time, an eccentric young monk that lived near a thriving village. In that village the presence of Mara was strong, for there were many luxuries - spices, liquors, fine clothing, and indeed many beautiful women, for this was a town of tradesmen and barter. Towns such as this attract eccentrics, and it was lucky that in this instance there were enough inspired and goodly beings of that persuasion to balance the scale. However the intentions, if such a word is appropriate, of the monk this tale is concerned with were, even then, doubtful.

He was indeed an eccentric. Wearing only the lower part of a Buddhist robe, in a bright red hue, his bare torso spoke of years under the whip. It was speculated by some that he had been made a slave in some far kingdom as a child, but most thought it more likely that he was simply a reformed ascetic. His face was very beautiful, and indeed it has been said that both men and women, monks and laity alike, would visit him only to stare at his features - even in this, a village full of physical beauty.

This "Red Monk," as the villagers called him, lived at that time in a small hut just across the field and over a hill from the village, and would give advice and compose poetry in exchange for rice and fish. This was, naturally, quite usual for a travelling monk to do. Certain aspects of the monk's practice were less usual.

Once, the story goes, an old man approached the monk asking how he could become wealthy in a short period of time, for he felt he was to die soon and wanted to experience luxury before this happened. The Red Monk, without hesitation, advised him to stand beside the river for three full days, without once sitting, sleeping, or eating. The old man faithfully obeyed, but alas he was very old and weak and he perished halfway through the third day. The villagers asked the Red Monk, when this happened, "How was he to obtain wealth in this way? In any case, he cannot enjoy it in death!" The Red Monk replied, "This old man lusted after wealth, and so was never happy. I gave him the idea of wealth, which is truly more powerful than the physical thing, and for the last two and half days of this man's life he was content and at peace. Material wealth could never have given him this gift."

The villagers were not sure that they were very satisfied with this answer, but the communal decision was that the old man had deserved what he had received anyway, if only for his superstition and stupidity, and the villagers departed.

On another occasion, a pale maiden did visit the monk to request his advice. She was betrothed to an old diplomat whom she despised, and would do anything short of running away from home to avoid becoming a part of his household. What went on in the monk's dwelling that evening is not a matter of public record, however the pale maiden did leave, after several hours, in a certain state of disarray, and some say to have observed her cheeks being a bright shade of crimson as she returned to the home of her family. It was soon discovered that she was no longer a virgin, and thus the marriage was called off and the maiden's family did send her out of shame to become a nun at a distant temple.

The Red Monk's altruism was again doubted in this case.

There were many theories in the village about this monk, in regards to his intentions and his origins, however a local fisherman made perhaps the most sage observation when he said, "I assume that he is in fact a Zen monk. I hear they are all insane."

Not everyone thought this of The Red Monk.

There was a particular young man in the village. He was very clever, but somewhat lacking in wisdom, and did so very much enjoy hearing about The Red Monk that he would sit in the village square when he had no work to finish, sometimes for the entire day, in the hopes that someone would mention some anecdote or piece of news about that strange individual. "Why do you not go visit the monk?" the villagers would ask. "When I am ready," the young man would always reply, but it seemed to everyone that he never would be.

One day, this young man was not in the village square in the morning. He was not there in the afternoon, and evening came and still he was absent. This was very strange, but it was not until the next morning that the villagers, for the young man was a labourer from away and had no family there, finally did send a search party to find him. It was no great suprise to many that he was found just across the field and over a hill, at the hut of The Red Monk.

"What happened? What did you do?" cried the villagers, for they could see that the young man was in a state of great distress, despite the meditative position in which he sat on the floor of the Red Monk's hut. The Red Monk himself was nowhere in sight, and this too was strange, for since arriving at the village he had never strayed far from his dwelling.

The young man then recounted his experience of the previous day:

"I told him I wished to ask him three questions. He consented. The first question I asked was, 'What is the Buddha?' and by way of response he clapped his hands together before his face. The second question I asked was 'What is the Way of the Buddha?' and he clapped his hands together in front of my own face, but I was not startled. My third question was 'Why then, does the Buddha before me not behave accordingly?' and with a swiftness and deftness I have not ever before seen in a man he struck a single blow with both hands to my stomach, which sent me to the floor. He looked at me then for what appeared to me to be several minutes as I lay there, although he did not appear angered, and said only 'Two claps is freedom from suffering. Three is simply death.' "

The Red Monk never returned to that village, perhaps because he knew that the young man would not leave that hut until he passed on, as an old man, a great many years later.

Questions from Dee:

Is The Red Monk moral, in any sense?

Is The Red Monk enlightened?

What path is it, that includes freedom from suffering at one step, and death at the next? Is that path enlightenment, or something else?

#Buddhism #Folktale #Zen #Red Monk #Moral Relativism #koans