The Severe Teacher

Ep. 7

Beloved acharya, the japanese master ekido was a severe teacher and his pupils feared him.

One day, as one of his pupils was striking the time of day on the temple gong, he missed a beat because he was watching a beautiful girl who was passing the gates.

Unknown to the pupil, ekido was standing behind him. Ekido struck the pupil with his staff, and the shock stopped the heart of the pupil, and he died.

Because the old custom of the pupil signing his life over to the master had sunk to a mere formality, ekido was discredited by the general public.

But after this incident, ekido produced ten enlightened successors, an unusually high number.

Season 4

Using traditional Zen stories and responding to seekers' questions, Acharya shows how man must first be grounded in himself before he can fly into the sky of consciousness. Acharya takes the reader from subjects as diverse as food, jealousy, businessmen and enlightenment, to how to know if one needs a master, the barriers we create through fear, and gratitude.

"Be rooted in the earth so that you can stretch to the sky; be rooted in the visible so that you can reach into the invisible. Don't create duality and don't create any antagonism. If I am against anything, I am against antagonism. I am against being against anything; I am for the whole, the complete circle. The world and God are not divided anywhere. There is no boundary: the world goes on spreading into God and God goes on spreading into the world. Really, to use two words is not good but language creates problems. We say the creator and the created, we divide. Language is dualistic; in reality there is no created and no creator, only creativity, only a process of infinite creativity. Nothing is divided. Everything is one -- undivided."