One brush, one school ... Conversations with a Buddhist Monk

I'm including excerpts from a conversation that I had with a Buddhist monk, into my blog. Not because I'm Buddhist, I'm not. But because his stories had a lot of relevance to things that happen within the dojo.

One of the first stories he told me, was a story from when he was a child. When he was a child in Japan, he was messing around and playing with some paint brushes, as children are apt to do. His grandfather saw him and told him to stop. As part of his punishment, his grandfather told him to count how many hairs were in the brush. He spent 3 hours counting the hairs in the brush. He counted the hairs in groups of ten and would wrap each group in a small piece of paper as not to lose his count. His grandfather came back some time later and asked him how many hairs he had counted -- he said 4,300 hairs.

His grandfather then told him to put the brush into the paint. He did. The grandfather then asked, how many hairs there were now. He said he couldn't count them now because they were all stuck together. That lesson stuck with him the longest.

As we continued talking it became apparent that he was talking about how we are all one. One, made up of many. The students in a dojo are many, but when we all work together, there are no more differences, there are no more individuals. The hairs in the brush become one in order to create a brush stroke. We are one school, one class, one lineage, one history, one student made up of many.

I took notes on our conversation later. I re-read this story every time I separate myself from the group of students that I study with. There is no separation. We are one in the same.