51 Zen Stories: Muddy Road

Hara Tanzan and Ekido Zenji were walking along a muddy road when they saw...

51 Zen Stories: A Buddha

On one such day, a cold night in Tokyo, Unshou decides to meet Tanzan...

51 Zen Stories: Happy Chinaman

A bald, stout, big-bellied man with a perennial broad-smile on his face whose magnanimity and cheerfulness brought him to be known as "Laughing Buddha"...

51 Zen Stories: The Last Poem of Hoshin

New Year was only six days away and Tokufu was in the fall of his life...

51 Zen Stories: The Moon Cannot Be Stolen

A monk-turned-pilgrim-turned-hermit, a poet and a calligrapher, but above all... a fool.

51 Zen Stories: Great Waves

Even though the Meiji era was a challenging period for the wrestlers in Japan...

51 Zen Stories: Announcement

Hara Tanzan (原タンザン, 5 December 1819 - 27 July 1892) was a polymathic Zen master and the first lecturer on...

51 Zen Stories: No Loving-Kindness

There was an old woman who had supported a monk for over...

51 Zen Stories: If You Love, Love Openly

Eshun (義順, 1362-ca. 1430) was a nun and the younger sister of...

51 Zen Stories: Obedience

Bankei Yōtaku (盤珪永琢) was a Japanese Zen master who lived in the 17th century. He...