“Where are all the dead leaves?”
It happened once:
A great emperor was learning from a Zen master about Zen gardening. Three years he learnt, and he made a beautiful garden; he had thousands of gardeners working. He was learning from the master and he was implementing everything that he learnt. After three years the master came – that was the examination. The emperor was trembling, because these three years he had known the man, he was ferocious. And you could not deceive him. He had tried every way, whatsoever he had said had been implemented, but still he was afraid – because he had not yet learnt the secret. He was still logical, he was systematizing things, although he had made a very asymmetrical garden — but in the asymmetry itself there was a logic, there was symmetry hidden behind.
The master came. He looked around, and he never smiled. For hours he went around and around. He looked at the whole garden and the emperor was perspiring, he had failed. The master had not said a single word. And then finally he said, “I don’t see a single dead leaf in the garden. Where are all the dead leaves? How can such a big garden be without dead leaves?!”
And the emperor said, “I told my servants to remove all the dead leaves because you were coming.”
He said, “Tell them to bring all the dead leaves back!”
They went outside the garden, they brought all the dead leaves back, and the master threw the dead leaves in the garden. And the wind started playing with the dead leaves and it took them all over the place. And he laughed and he said, “Now it is okay – now it is natural. But you have failed. Three years more, then I will come again.”
Osho, Take It Easy, Vol 1, Ch 4
Series compiled by Shanti
All excerpts of this series can be found in: 1001 Tales
Featured image credit to Getty Images via unsplash.com
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