The Stream and the Stone
Long ago, there was a village called Heze, nestled deep within the mountains — a place beyond the world of men. There, the people knew not coin, and trade bore no name.
At the village’s heart stood an ancient tree, known as the Tree of Offering. Beneath it lay a stone stele, carved with four simple words:
“Let the willing give.”
Each morning and evening, the villagers would hang slips of bamboo upon the branches, inscribed with what they lacked or what they could give.
Some wrote: “A measure of rice is needed.”
Others: “I am strong today, I can till a field.”
Those who passed by, if moved in heart, would fulfill the needs quietly, asking nothing in return.
No overseer governed this, no law enforced it. All was done by will alone, and thus, nothing was hindered.
One day, a merchant from afar arrived. Seeing their ways, he was puzzled, and asked an elder:
“If men only take and never give, would not the village fall to ruin?”
The elder smiled, pointing to the stream beside them:
“The stream does not ask how much one draws; the stone does not refuse the weight of one who sits. Should not our giving be likewise?”
The merchant stood in silence for a long while. At last, he removed a golden ornament from his pouch, placed it beneath the tree, and wrote upon a slip:
“Release but one grasping thought, and gain an inch of clarity.”
Then he departed.
Epilogue:
The stream asks not how many draw from it;
The stone refuses not the weight of those who rest upon it.
The Outer World Is a Projection of the Inner Mind
A young monk once came to study under the great Zen Master Zhaozhou (Joshu).
Upon arriving at the temple, he bowed respectfully and asked:
“Master, I am new to the monastic life. Please tell me—what is the Buddha?”
Zhaozhou looked at him and replied,
“Have you eaten?”
The monk paused and said,
“Yes, I have.”
Zhaozhou then said,
“Then go wash your bowl.”
— “Zen Master Zhaozhou ‘s Disciple Washes His Bowl”
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Interpretation:
This young monk was asking, “What is the Buddha?”—but in doing so, he was seeking something outside himself: an exalted, sacred truth or ultimate answer.
Yet Zhaozhou simply told him to wash his bowl.
Why? Because he had just finished eating—the Buddha is right there, in the act of washing the bowl, in the clear awareness of that very moment.
If your mind is pure, the present moment is Buddha.
If your mind is clouded with distinctions and attachments, no matter how many times you ask about Buddha, all you’ll receive are empty words.
This story is a direct expression of the truth that:
The outer world is a projection of the inner mind.
• If your heart is constantly searching for a distant Buddha, what you see will always be confusion and frustration.
• But if you return to the present and let go of attachment, the single mindful act of washing your bowl becomes a revelation of true reality.
Zhaozhou didn’t offer philosophy—he turned the question of “Buddha” back to the monk himself, guiding him to look into his own mind.
Because the Buddha is not out there—the Buddha is the mind itself, and the Buddha is this very moment.
What you see in the world is an extension of your mind;
All that you experience is a projection of your own consciousness.
As the Vimalakirti Sutra says:
“If a bodhisattva wishes to attain a pure land, he should purify his own mind;
When the mind is pure, the Buddha land is pure.”
• The outer world has no fixed form of its own—it is like a mirror, reflecting your heart.
• If your mind is filled with confusion, delusion, and attachment, even the most beautiful world will feel burdensome and painful.
• But if your mind is clear, compassionate, and free, even in a defiled world, you will see the splendor of a pure land.
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Scripture:
A bodhisattva-mahāsattva practicing the perfection of wisdom should not seek it in form, nor in feeling, perception, volitional formations, or consciousness;
nor should they seek it apart from form, nor apart from feeling, perception, volitional formations, or consciousness.
This passage is from the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra (The Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra).
Explanation:
• “Should not seek it in form”: When cultivating the wisdom of prajñā, one should not become attached to form (i.e., material phenomena) in seeking ultimate reality or liberation.
• “Nor in feeling, perception, volitional formations, or consciousness”: Likewise, one should not become attached to feeling (sensations), perception (mental images), volitional formations (mental activities), or consciousness (awareness) in seeking truth or liberation.
• “Nor should they seek it apart from form”: One should not try to abandon or reject form in order to search for wisdom elsewhere, as if truth lay beyond or separate from the material world.
• “Nor apart from feeling, perception, volitional formations, or consciousness”: Similarly, one should not discard these mental aggregates as obstacles and try to seek prajñā elsewhere.
Meaning:
A bodhisattva cultivating the perfection of wisdom should neither cling to the five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, consciousness) in search of wisdom, nor reject or escape from them to find wisdom elsewhere.
This is because the five aggregates are inherently empty and lack independent self-nature. True wisdom is found not through grasping or rejecting, but through realizing their fundamentally empty and tranquil nature. One should abide neither in existence nor in non-existence.
This is the same insight expressed in the Heart Sutra:
“He clearly saw that the five aggregates are all empty, thus transcending all suffering and distress.”
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The “Five Desires” in Buddhism refer to the five kinds of worldly cravings that people most commonly pursue and that most easily give rise to afflictions and attachment. These desires are shared by all beings in the Desire Realm (Kāmadhātu) and represent the fundamental objects of their craving. They are as follows:
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The Five Desires:
1. Wealth (財): Craving for money, property, land, jewels, and other material possessions.
2. Sensual Pleasure (色): Attachment to sexual desire, physical beauty, and appearance.
3. Fame (名): Desire for reputation, status, power, and being respected.
4. Food (食): Obsession with flavors and the enjoyment of delicious food.
5. Sleep (睡): Attachment to comfort, laziness, and sleep.
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Characteristics and Harm:
• Obstruction to Practice: The five desires are among the greatest obstacles to spiritual cultivation. They easily lead to afflictions, conflict, and endless rebirth.
• Short-lived and Illusory: The satisfaction gained from the five desires is often fleeting, followed by emptiness, attachment, and suffering.
• Source of Evil Karma: Many unwholesome actions—such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and lying—originate from the greed for these desires.
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Teachings in Buddhist Scriptures:
For example, the Śūraṅgama Sūtra says:
“The five desires blaze fiercely, burning away the roots of goodness.”
And the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra states:
“The five desires are like poisonous snakes, enemies, and fire pits—wise ones keep their distance.”
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Methods of Overcoming:
• Uphold Pure Precepts: Prevent wrongdoing and reduce actions driven by desire.
• Cultivate Concentration and Wisdom: Use meditative absorption (samādhi) to replace sensory cravings and turn inward to find joy.
• Contemplate Impermanence: Reflect on the fleeting and insubstantial nature of pleasures to give rise to the mind of renunciation.
• Aspire to Be Reborn in the Pure Land: Distance oneself from environments dominated by desire and be reborn in a pure realm conducive to liberation.
In Buddhism, all realms where sentient beings undergo the cycle of birth and death (samsara) are categorized into the “Three Realms”:
1. Desire Realm (Kāma-dhātu): This realm is characterized by strong attachment to the “Five Desires”—form (attraction to beauty), sound (music), scent (fragrance), taste (food), and touch (physical sensation). Sexual desire and craving for food are especially intense here. The Desire Realm includes humans, animals, hungry ghosts, hell beings, and the six heavens of desire (such as the Heaven of the Four Great Kings, Trāyastriṃśa Heaven, etc.).
2. Form Realm (Rūpa-dhātu): In this realm, beings still possess material form (bodies), but they have already transcended sexual desire and no longer seek pleasure through the five senses. Instead, they abide in the joy of meditative concentration (dhyāna). Beings in the Form Realm are mostly born through meditative attainment and are categorized into four levels of meditative heavens, corresponding to the four dhyānas (first dhyāna, second dhyāna, third dhyāna, and fourth dhyāna).
3. Formless Realm (Ārūpya-dhātu): In this realm, beings no longer possess physical form; only pure consciousness remains. They dwell in profound states of meditative absorption, having transcended all material existence. The Formless Realm is further divided into four levels: the Heaven of Infinite Space, the Heaven of Infinite Consciousness, the Heaven of Nothingness, and the Heaven of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception.
• The term “collective karma” (共業) refers to the shared actions of beings that result in shared karmic outcomes—such as being born into the human world, heavenly realms, or hell realms.
• Beings in the Desire Realm are driven by desire, including craving for food, sleep, beauty, and sensory pleasure—most notably sexual and gustatory desires.
• In other words, ordinary beings like us, including humans, are born into the Desire Realm due to the force of karma and the pull of desire.
In the progressive stages of Buddhist practice:
• Sexual desire is one of the primary afflictions in the Desire Realm and a major obstacle to developing renunciation and attaining deep meditative concentration.
• If one can completely eliminate sexual desire (not through suppression, but through genuine cessation), it indicates that the person is no longer attached to the fundamental pleasures of the Desire Realm (such as sexual gratification).
• Such a person has a purified mind and diminished cravings, making them qualified to enter the meditative absorptions of the Form Realm.
• If they successfully cultivate dhyāna, they may be reborn in the Form Realm in the next life.
• If they attain even deeper meditation, they might be reborn in the Formless Realm.
• And if they continue advancing and even let go of attachment to the Form and Formless Realms, they may move toward nirvāṇa and liberation, becoming an Arhat or Bodhisattva, thus escaping the cycle of rebirth entirely.
What does this have to do with “being born from a mother’s womb”?
• Beings in the Desire Realm are usually born through womb-birth, egg-birth, or other biological methods. Humans are a typical example of birth through a mother’s womb.
• If a person has transcended the Desire Realm (for instance, by being reborn in the Form or Formless Realms), then they no longer undergo birth in the way of the Desire Realm, such as:
• Not being born from a mother’s womb;
• Instead, beings in the Form and Formless Realms are born through the power of meditative concentration and mental intention, without the need for sexual reproduction.
Examples of progressive stages of spiritual development:
1. Ordinary person – still bound by sexual desire, greed, hatred, and delusion; continues to be reborn in the Desire Realm.
2. Meditative practitioner – has eliminated sexual desire and cultivated dhyāna; may be reborn in the Form or Formless Realms.
3. Liberated being – has eradicated all defilements; no longer undergoes rebirth; transcends the Three Realms and the cycle of birth and death.
The elimination of sexual desire is one of the signs of transcending the Desire Realm. A person who has truly eradicated sexual desire is no longer bound by the Five Desires and may be reborn in the purer Form or Formless Realms—or even attain full liberation. As such, they will no longer enter the cycle of rebirth in the Desire Realm by being born through a mother’s womb. This principle is discussed in many Buddhist scriptures such as the Āgamas, the Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna, and the Abhidharmakośa.
A Brahmin once asked the Buddha, “May I ask you, how many Buddhas will appear in the future?”
The Buddha replied, “As many as the grains of sand in the Ganges River.”
The man was overjoyed upon hearing this. He paid his respects to the Buddha and left.
After walking a short distance, he thought to himself, “I only asked the Buddha about the future. I haven’t asked about the past.” So he returned and asked, “May I ask you, how many Buddhas have appeared in the past?”
The Buddha answered, “As many as the grains of sand in the Ganges River.”
The man was deeply shaken by this. He thought, “So many Buddhas have appeared in the past, yet I have never learned from any of them. Even if the same number of Buddhas appear in the future, what good will it do me? I should learn from the Buddha before me now.”
He then requested the Buddha to allow him to renounce the household life. The Buddha immediately accepted him as a bhikkhu and ordained him. Because of his right view and faith, he quickly attained the fruit of arahantship.
— Saṃyukta Āgama, Scroll 34, Sutra 946
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In the present bhadra kalpa (Auspicious Aeon), a total of one thousand Buddhas will appear. Shakyamuni Buddha is the fourth Buddha of this aeon. Maitreya Buddha will be the fifth.
According to Buddhist scriptures, the time between the passing of Shakyamuni Buddha and the future birth of Maitreya Buddha will be 5.67 billion years.