The Thief Who Became a Disciple Zen Story
- Dec 11, 2025
- 2 min read
Today we enter… The Thief Who Became a Disciple.A story of fear meeting something it cannot scare. A story of a man who came to take, and left having received what he didn’t know he was starving for.
This one doesn’t shout. It slips under the ribs.Let’s step inside — slowly, bravely.
Let the Story Unfold
A thief broke into the small hermitage of Shichiri Kojun.
Finding no one home, he began gathering what he could carry.
At that moment, the master returned.
Shichiri looked at the intruder quietly and said:
You should not have had to come this far. Take what you need.
He lit a candle so the thief could see more clearly.
The man, trembling with confusion, took a few belongings and fled.
As he disappeared into the night, Shichiri murmured:
If only I could give him this moon.
Days later, the thief was caught by authorities and confessed.
They brought him to Shichiri as the one he had robbed.
Shichiri bowed and said:
He took nothing from me. I gave what he received.
The thief broke open. He asked to become Shichiri’s student.
Sit With the Meaning
Zen does not transform people through accusation. It transforms them through presence that cannot be threatened.
The thief expected fear.
He met someone who did not contract.
He expected resistance.
He met someone who did not cling.
He expected to take.
He met someone already free.
When you encounter a person who owns nothing with fear, your own fear has nowhere to live.
That is the moon Shichiri wished he could give.
His belongings didn’t matter.
His safety wasn’t his question .
His freedom was the teaching.
The thief didn’t return because he was caught. He returned because the master’s emptiness showed him his own hunger.
No punishment. No sermon. Just a presence that could not be robbed.
Some hearts only crack open when they realize there is nothing left to take from them —and everything left to receive.
Turn Inward With Your Parts
Is there a part of you that assumes the world will take from you if you do not guard tightly?
What happens inside when someone meets your fear with calm instead of resistance?
Can you sense a protector who believes generosity equals vulnerability, or danger?
What stirs when you imagine being with someone who cannot be threatened by your intensity, your fear, or your grasping?
Let Expression Rise
Choose the doorway that feels open:
IFS Journaling
Write from the part that clenches around safety.What is it guarding?What does it imagine would collapse if it loosened its grip?
IFS Parts Art
Draw the moment when the master lit the candle.Capture what your system feels when fear is met without fear.
Somatic IFS
Close your eyes.
Make a fist; tight, protective, instinctive.
Then soften the hand slowly, letting the fingers uncurl on their own time.
Notice which part of you relaxes when nothing is trying to take anything from you.
And if none of these feel right… it’s perfectly okay to simply rest with the story. Let the silence do the holding.
Stay here with your parts as long as you like, and we’ll meet again in the next story.
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