"If you don't hold out your hand a Zen master will be murdered"

This quotation from The Empty Mirror, Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery, by Jan Willem Van de Wetering Arkana, London, 1974, page 118 seems to me to be an excellent illustration of karma, the importance of mindfulness in Buddhist training and being aware of the possible consequences of our thoughts, words, acts and omissions. It is also great example of effective teaching.

Van de Wetering is using a motor scooter to commute to the Zen Monastery where he is training:

"The scooter disturbed the head monk.

'Koan study,' he said, 'leads to undertanding that all things are connected. All beings are bound to each other by strong invisible threads. Anyone who has realised this truth will be careful, will try to be aware of what he is doing. You aren't.'

'No?' I asked politely.

'No,' the head monk said and looked at me discontentedly. 'I saw you turn a corner the other day and you didn't hold out your hand. Because of your carelessness a truckdriver, who happened to be driving behind you, got into trouble and had to drive his truck on the sidewalk where a lady pushing a pram hit a director of a large trading company. The man, who was in a bad mood already, fired an employee that day who might have stayed on. That employee got drunk that night and killed a young man who could have become a Zen master.'

'Come off it,' I said.

'Perhaps it will be better if you hold your hand out in future when you turn a corner,' the head monk said."

Van de Wetering's Grijpstra and De Gier police novels are worth reading too.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 King James Version

3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3:3 A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
3:5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
3:6 A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
3:7 A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.

9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? 10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.......... I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. 13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God..................

15 That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been....................... 22 Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?