In our last session we spoke about the secret transmission between the Fifth Ancestor and Eno (Huineng), symbolised by the robe and the bowl. After receiving them, Eno was forced to flee the monastery. When the monks discovered what had happened, many of them began chasing him.
Among them was one monk in particular: Mio. Formerly a soldier, he was strong and determined, and he pursued Eno with the clear intention of recovering the robe and the bowl—the symbols of transmission.
This part of the story is deeply alive on a human level. It shows how strongly we hold ideas about how things should be. According to the expectations of the monastery, the senior monk should have become the successor. Instead, the transmission was given to a poor, illiterate worker from the south of China. For many, this must have felt like a disruption of the natural order.
When reality does not match the script we carry in our minds, tension appears. Frustration, resentment, disappointment. We all know this dynamic in our own lives: we expect things to unfold in a certain way, and when they don’t, we feel something has gone wrong.
Eventually Mio catches Eno. The first thing he demands is the robe and the bowl. To him, these objects seem to represent the whole meaning of the transmission.
But Eno does something unexpected.
He places the robe and the bowl on a rock and tells Mio that they are merely symbols—representations of trust. They cannot truly be taken by force. If Mio wants them, he is free to take them.
According to the story, Mio tries to lift them but cannot. Whether this moment is meant literally or symbolically is not the point. Something shifts inside him. The intensity of his pursuit collapses.
Instead of insisting on taking the objects, Mio asks Eno for teaching.
This is the turning point of the story.
At first Mio was chasing a symbol—something he believed represented awakening, authority, and success. But in that moment the search changes direction. It moves from possession to understanding, from grabbing to listening.
In many ways this mirrors our own practice.
At the beginning we may search for something: a special state, a clear insight, a confirmation that we are progressing. But slowly practice begins to soften this movement. Less grasping, less chasing, more simply seeing.
The robe and the bowl are only symbols, yet we easily become attached to symbols in our own lives as well. Roles, titles, achievements, experiences. These things are not wrong or meaningless—but when we hold them too tightly they can become a trap.
We may believe that if we obtain something—recognition, understanding, success—then we will finally feel complete.
Practice gently points us somewhere simpler: nothing we can hold truly defines who we are.
Awakening is not an object that can be possessed or carried around. In this story it appears in a very quiet moment: when Mio stops chasing.
The shift happens when the former soldier moves from certainty to openness—from grabbing something to asking a question.
Sometimes the deepest moments in practice are not when we find something, but when we stop trying to grasp.
Questions for Reflection
During the session we explored two questions together:
- Can you recognize something you have strongly pursued in your life or practice, believing it would change everything?
- Has there been a moment when you realized that what you were chasing was not really necessary?
These questions are not meant for judgment or regret. They are simply an invitation to look more clearly at how our minds create stories about what is essential, and how sometimes clarity appears when those stories soften.
Zen Mindfulness Cambridge Zenways Italia 