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Once a Thief: A Zen Priest Tells a Story

Once a Thief: A Zen Priest Tells a Story

Last updated on: August 22, 2018 at 6:45 pm by James Ford

Once a Thief: A Zen Priest Tells a Story 2018-08-22T18:45:08-07:00 James Ford

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In my adolescence I stumbled upon Journeys on the Razor-edged Path*. It was written by someone named Simons Roof. I never learned much about him beyond that in the first half of the twentieth century he traveled to India and studied with several prominent gurus. He appears to have written a single book.*

However, that single book became very important to me, especially some of the teaching stories he collected. They pointed me in directions that would become a significant part of the foundations of my ongoing spiritual life. One story in particular about a burglar trapped into pretending he was a guru caught my heart, and continues to inform me.

Here is my retelling of that story…

Once a Thief

James Myoun Ford

Once upon a time long ago and far away there was a burglar. She was quick witted and nibble footed, so she was successful. As sometimes happens when one is good at something, she kept pushing the envelope. And with that came the disaster.

She was discovered trying to break into a rich merchant’s home. She fled before being seen. However with the hew and cry pretty much the whole village was soon in hot pursuit. She was barely ahead of a gathering mob.

Fortunately for her she was just far enough ahead of the crowd that when she saw a cave opening in front of a creek she had time to throw herself into the water, rolled in the mud, and then sat down and settled into a meditation posture in front of the cave as if it were her wandering mendicant’s rest.

When the crowd arrived their leader saw her and said, “Oh holy one! Did you see the thief we were chasing?”

The burglar simply ignored the question and continued sitting as if she were meditating.

One of the villagers said to their leader, “Can’t you see she’s meditating? We would earn some very bad karma if we disturb her.” And then another said, “Let’s wait.” There was muttering of agreement and the leader understood one leads by ordering people to do what they want to. So, they waited.

While the burglar sat there, pretending to meditate, and wondering desperately when they would move on, more and more villagers gathered. Some sat down. A few even began to meditate themselves. After about two hours, vastly longer than the burglar ever thought she could hold still, she pretended to awaken from a trance. She slowly opened her eyes and looked out at what was now about fifty people, all of them sitting quietly, waiting.

She cleared her throat and spoke softly, but with enough volume to be heard by everyone, “Why are you looking for some poor thief, dear ones? Wouldn’t it be vastly better to search for your true nature? After all who isn’t stealing their lives by ignoring the great question?”

With this the villagers were overcome, some with grief at their wasted energy, others at the call to something more important than perhaps they’d ever considered before. A few ran back to the village to gather flowers to give her. A few others went home and got some food. And not just leftovers, but treats rare in their community.

Presented with the flowers and food the burglar ate, trying not to gobble or look greedy. Then asking herself what a wise person would do, she made sure the balance of the food was distributed among those present, making sure the poorest got some of the best delicacies. She also handed out the flowers. People felt graced.

Finally the rich merchant himself stepped forward and implored the wise nun that she remain and grace their village with her wisdom.

The burglar thought to herself, well, while I’m good at my trade as a thief, it is hard work, and it is dangerous. This holy nun gig could be an easy way to make a living. Once a thief, she thought she could easily steal what she needed pretending to be holy.

So, she said, “I will stay with you. But, only for a brief time.”

The villagers were ecstatic. They brought her blankets and candles and even a pillow.

Life was comfortable, beyond what she had experienced, ever. The price was that she had to pretend to meditate for hours every day and then in the early evening to answer questions they would bring her. Answering questions turned out not to be difficult. It seemed she knew what a good and generous heart would do, or, as she thought it, what a sucker might do. Pretending to meditate was harder. She had to hold still. And she knew people were watching, so she really had to hold still.

Time passed. The food was good. The blankets were warm. And, oh, my, that pillow.

But her meditating continued to be a terrible ordeal. The burglar was forced to sit. There were simply too many witnesses. She began to sit on a pillow and gradually become comfortable sitting cross-legged. Her knees finally touched the ground and she felt it stable.

But then there was her mind. She fantasized about everything that had happened her life, how she was raised, the poverty, the learning to read, and the reading, figuring out how to steal without getting caught, the moments of joy and the long times of boredom and intermittent flashes of terror. She also fantasized at the future, about what new treats the villagers might bring, about what she would do when she tired of this and returned to the road and a life of burglaries.

But, as she passed from the past to the future increasingly she noticed a moment. At first it was a flashing silence. Then, gradually it grew larger in her consciousness. After a while that space, that quiet, that just being present became a large part of her holding still, pretending to meditate.

That pretending was becoming something. She couldn’t say what. But it was now different. As was how she saw the villagers, and even, how she saw the words that came out of her mouth. She gradually came to know them, their sorrows, their pettinesses, their intrigues, their loves, their generosities. Gradually she began to love them.

And, she began to see how her own life, which she was becoming ever more aware of, in painful and minute detail just through the repetitions of her own mind playing around the silences, was just like theirs.

Then the boy appeared. He approached her one evening, made bows, and said he’d been wandering looking for a teacher, and he’d began to hear of this amazing nun who spoke wisely and more importantly modeled the great gift of silent meditation.

He declared he wanted to learn her wisdom.

Not knowing what to do, she simply ignored him. He took a place in the dirt below her as she began to pretend to meditate and sat quietly. The next day she told him to go, she wasn’t interested in having disciples. But he continued to sit with her at a respectful distance. She knew she had to pretend to be generous so she made sure he was fed. And before long the villagers made sure he had blankets and even a pillow of his own. He seemed much less interested in them than she was. What he seemed to love was to sit quietly.

She asked him what he was doing while meditating?

He said he counted his breath, putting a one on his inhalation, then exhaled, then put a two on the next inhalation, and continuing until ten. After which he repeated. She said nothing. Then she tried it for herself, and discovered it helped with concentration. But, it also tended to obscure the quite place that seemed increasingly interesting to her. So, a few days later she told him that he might try just sitting quietly, not trying to think, not trying not to think. And he did.

She began to wonder if there were some way to escape.

The problem was that there were villagers around pretty much all the time, and the boy, well, he was there all the time.

So, the burglar was stuck.

Over time the burglar grew more quiet and ever more open. And her words began to come from that place, the place where she saw she and they were all the same.

Increasingly she talked about the silence, about what she found, and what they might find.

One day the boy came to her and said that when he took a walk down by the creek a crow called out. And, in that moment he realize the crow, the creek, the trees, he himself, and all things were joined so closely that the right word for what was true and present was simply “one.” He then added, embarrassed, even that “one” seemed a bit too much.

She wasn’t sure what to say, so she simply smiled at him, put her hands together and made a small bow.

They continued together in this way as the weeks turned into months and then into years.

She wasn’t sure when it happened for herself. In fact she never had that “big” thing like her disciple. What she did have was a gradual growing into peace and joy.

Eventually her fame as a wise counselor and teacher of the ways of the heart spread across the country. She was attended to faithfully by her disciple who was increasingly seen as a wise teacher himself. Eventually a small community of monks and nuns gathered around her. And, within the village others seemed to become wise, as well…

Eventually she fell ill, but that seemed okay. Her disciples tended to her. And that was okay. The villagers came to ask her last questions. And that was okay. The world as terrible as it was, was also something wonderful, something amazing.

And when she died, her senior disciple now a wise and respected counselor oversaw the burning of her corpse, and installed her ashes under some rocks out beyond the small monastery of nuns and monks that had grown over the years. Before he lectured he would always thank the good gods that he had been given such a wonderful guide on the mysteries of life and death.

Once a thief…

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