“Is That So?”

“Is that so?” - a buddhist koan

The Zen master Hakuin was praised by his neighbors as one living a pure life. A beautiful Japanese girl whose parents owned a food store lived near him. Suddenly, without any warning, her parents discovered she was pregnant. This made her parents very angry. She would not confess who the man was, but after much harassment at last named Hakuin.

In great anger the parents went to the master. “Is that so?” was all he would say. When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he takes care of the child since it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.

A year later the girl could stand it no longer. She told her parents the truth—that the real father of the child was a young man who worked in the fishmarket, and not Hakuin. The parents of the girl at once went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness, and to get the child back again. Hakuin was willing. In yielding the child, all he said was: “Is that so?”

---

It is said, “What need do you have to justify your actions when you know yourself?”

Hakuin himself said, “At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully".

In my opinion, doubt can viewed as a purifying activity when it is a driven, persistent insistence on Truth.