THE MONK AND THE TIGER
Maggie H is a Global Explorer and Wellness Advocate from Hong Kong. Among many spiritual endeavors, Maggie practices and leads Qigong meditation to help people around the world find their inner balance. Find out more about this and other Eastern Philosophy & Meditation practices every month on the ICBRKR blog.
This is a true story.
People in the East believe that heaven protects practitioners and we've heard many unbelievable stories substantiating this belief. This is one of them and describes the experience of a zen monk during his intense retreat.
It is a tale of the early '70s when a monk desired to upgrade his practice for a few months in winters. Thus, he found a small hut in the deep mountain called Crouching Tiger Mountain (虎踞山). Initially, he thought that it might be beneficial for him to stay with a fellow monk so that they could stay in each other’s company and check each other's practices too.
A few days later, the monk felt that staying with someone else was more troublesome than being worthy, but he couldn't ask the other monk to leave. Soon after, the other monk decided to leave the hut on his own accord, after which the monk was able to solely focus on his contemplation practices.
One day, he realised that he may not have a sufficient quantity of food to last him for the originally intended period and if he couldn't find an alternative way to arrange food, he would have to cut short the duration of his retreat. A few days later, an old lady from the village down the mountain visited his hut and requested him if he could look after her mentally ill son during the winters so that she could placidly go to the city to make money. She promised that in return, she would supply food for both of them. The problem of food supply was taken care of and the monk was able to continue with his practising.
One morning, the monk woke up early to perform the morning rituals. He tried to open the door to go outside, but the door won't open. He thought it was because of the heavy snowfall in the last night, so he walked back a few steps and pushed the door out hardly, thinking that it would shove away the snow-pile outside the door. Surprisingly, it felt more like a mountain-sized object that was moving and was covered in snow. It was a tiger!
Left with no choice, the monk would have to go past the tiger to reach the well to get fresh water for the rituals, but he froze right there because his legs weren't moving. Suddenly, the tiger stepped aside slowly so that the monk could go to the well. On his way back, the tiger was still watching him from a distance. When he came inside the hut, he realised that he was barefoot all along and had also wet his pants. This incident spooked the heck out of the old lady's mentally ill son and he refused to stay with the monk.
The monk was left alone again. However, quite often, when the monk went to the well to fetch the water in the morning, the tiger would sit on top of the edge of the well and at night, the tiger would roam around or lie down near the hut whenever there was a snowstorm or bad weather as if he was protecting the monk. The interesting thing was that he would never come closer to the monk than a couple of meters.
In a strange way, the monk felt that this had something to do with his past life karma and if the tiger is going to be around, he might even try to enlighten the animal with religious talks. So, he started chanting Diamond Sutra whether the tiger could understand it or not.
Every morning, the monk recited religious talks to the tiger, after which the tiger would express its rejoice by keeping its mouth wide open or hitting the ground with its tail as if it was responding to the monk. The series of Diamond Sutra religious talks continued and the monk was practising hard for the rest of the time under the protection of the tiger. Time flew by quickly and the monk nearly finished his scheduled stay at the hut. One day, after giving his last religious speech, he informed the tiger that he had to leave the next day. Then he blessed the tiger to be born as a human being in its next life and practice to get enlightened.
The next day, as the monk was leaving the mountain, the tiger showed up for the last time to see him off. After this magical retreat, the monk went on and built a zen centre nearby the ocean. When he was dying of cancer at his old age, he never complained about the pain, which surprised many medical staff members at the hospital as they described that the pain of this illness could be unbearable to most people. However, the monk hardly ever expressed the pain and left his body in peace.
This story establishes that no matter whatever you do, as long it is for the greater good, you must follow your gut and take a leap of faith and the universe will find a way to protect and support you.
P.S. All temples in the mountain have the shrine for the guardian of the mountain (山神閣) and you will always encounter the thanka of the mountain guardian accompanying tigers.