Zen Potatoes
Zen Master Seung Sahn on practicing Zen with others....
"...You are always checking, checking, checking--"my feelings," "somebody's feelings," "my mind, somebody's understanding"... So you make your problems. You say you cannot help other people, and that you are a burden to them. Don't worry about other people. If you practice with others, your good and bad actions already help other people. We call this together action.
Together action is like washing potatoes. When people wash potatoes in Korea, instead of washing them one at a time, they put them in a tub of water. Then someone puts a stick in the tub and pushes it up and down, up and down. This makes the potatoes rub against each other; as they bump into each other, the hard crusty dirt falls off. If you wash potatoes one at a time, it takes a long time to clean each one, and only one potato gets clean at a time. If they are all together, the potatoes clean each other..."
"...You are always checking, checking, checking--"my feelings," "somebody's feelings," "my mind, somebody's understanding"... So you make your problems. You say you cannot help other people, and that you are a burden to them. Don't worry about other people. If you practice with others, your good and bad actions already help other people. We call this together action.
Together action is like washing potatoes. When people wash potatoes in Korea, instead of washing them one at a time, they put them in a tub of water. Then someone puts a stick in the tub and pushes it up and down, up and down. This makes the potatoes rub against each other; as they bump into each other, the hard crusty dirt falls off. If you wash potatoes one at a time, it takes a long time to clean each one, and only one potato gets clean at a time. If they are all together, the potatoes clean each other..."