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Zen Stories
Cliffhanger
One day while walking through the wilderness a man
stumbled upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a
high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a vine and
dangled over the fatal precipice. As he hung there, two mice
appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine.
Suddenly, he noticed on the vine a plump wild strawberry. He plucked
it and popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly delicious!
(One reader claimed that Thomas Cleary once told him that the
original ending of this story was quite different. According to
Cleary, D.T. Suzuki changed the ending because he thought the
original would not appeal to Westerners. The story was then picked
up by others, such as Paul Reps. In the original version, the
strawberry turns out to be, in fact, deadly poison.)
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