A good Zen story, with a point to it, doesn't end with the point, but points to the way past it.
The great Zen Master of olden times, Banko, tells this story about his own student days.
One day, in his Master's monastery, Banko was going to the toilet in this monastery. This happened when he was still a student, and when he had been with his master, only a few short months.
It so happened that the master, himself, was just coming out.
The master said to him,"What's coming, what's going?"
The student looked at him to see if he was being serious, but then he should have known that the master was always being serious and humorous at the same time, a mix of both lesson and fun was always the best teacher, he so often said.
Banko pondered on this for many months. He was not sure if he had heard the master right.
Maybe he had actually said to him, "Who's coming, Who's going?"
After two years, Banko was thinking of leaving this particular monastery, because he had heard of a great master, who had just opened a new monastery, not far away.
Banko sat upon the stone wall, surrounding the monastery, pondering about what he should do.
Just then the master walked past him once again, and he said to him then,
"Love never goes, unless it goes."
He meant of course that it was always Banko's decision alone to let it, love, go. Stop minding about these things unnecessarily, and just follow the love, was what he was really saying to Banko here.
Banko stayed with his first master then, and in just a few short months more, he reached enlightenment, through not his mind, but through his feeling the deep real love of his master, pulling him past his mind.
What can we do when we have freed our self of every desire, but the desire to be free of every desire?
How do we get rid of the last desire?
Answer: Find love!
The greatest length of anything is its stretched length, of which, all things stretch it, and the greatest of these forces is a desire.
When things are not being stretched, or exaggeratedly represented, or wanted or desired, all is just as it is, and only then can you see the truth of it all.
Love is all.
The door to our heart is never ajar. There is no door into love.
Love is an open book for you to read your true self from. Love is your true self. Nothing is stopping you from loving, but your own mind.
Be your true self. Love all, as Banko's master showed him to do here, by his own example of love.
It is our mind that creates all doors, it is our mind that's often a jar, that is, one that we fill with our desires.
Love never needs to fill anything with itself.
Love is just love. Empty yourself of desire, and find the love that is always there, in you, and everywhere else, besides.
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