In Continuation of Secret of work - A Zen Story

[Guest guest]

Please check

http://www.telugubhakti.com/telugupages/Monthly/tbpfpages.htm

Publishing the Sutras

 

Tetsugen, a devotee of Zen in Japan, decided to publish the sutras,

which at that time were available only in Chinese. The books were to

be printed with wood blocks in an edition of seven thousand copies,

a tremendous undertaking.

 

Tetsugen began by traveling and collecting donations for this

purpose. A few sympathizers would give him a hundred pieces of gold,

but most of the time he received only small coins. He thanked each

donor with equal gratitude. After ten years Tetsugen had enough

money to begin his task.

 

It happened that at that time the Uji River overflowed. Famine

followed. Tetsugen took the funds he had collected for the books and

spent them to save others from starvation. Then he began again his

work of collecting.

 

Several years afterwards an epidemic spread over the country.

Tetsugen again gave away what he had collected, to help his people.

 

For a third time he started his work, and after twenty years his

wish was fulfilled. The printing blocks which produced the first

edition of sutras can be seen today in the Obaku monastery in Kyoto.

 

The Japanese tell their children that Tetsugen made three sets of

sutras, and that the first two invisible sets surpass even the last.