Ep. 3

Beloved acharya, a warrior came to the zen master hakuin and asked "is there such a thing as heaven and hell?" hakuin said "who are you?" the warrior replied "i am chief samurai to the emperor." hakuin said "you, a samurai? With a face like that, you look more like a beggar." at this the warrior became so angry he drew his sword. Standing calmly in front of him, hakuin said "here open the gates of hell." perceiving the master's composure, the soldier sheathed his sword and bowed.

Hakuin then said "and here open the gates of heaven."

Season 4

Using traditional Zen stories and responding to seekers' questions, Acharya shows how man must first be grounded in himself before he can fly into the sky of consciousness. Acharya takes the reader from subjects as diverse as food, jealousy, businessmen and enlightenment, to how to know if one needs a master, the barriers we create through fear, and gratitude.

"Be rooted in the earth so that you can stretch to the sky; be rooted in the visible so that you can reach into the invisible. Don't create duality and don't create any antagonism. If I am against anything, I am against antagonism. I am against being against anything; I am for the whole, the complete circle. The world and God are not divided anywhere. There is no boundary: the world goes on spreading into God and God goes on spreading into the world. Really, to use two words is not good but language creates problems. We say the creator and the created, we divide. Language is dualistic; in reality there is no created and no creator, only creativity, only a process of infinite creativity. Nothing is divided. Everything is one -- undivided."