A young Zen monk with the name “Understanding Wisdom” encountered a strange difficulty when practicing meditation. As soon as he closed his eyes for deep meditation, a huge spider would appear and run around him. He was not afraid of the poison or the ugliness of the spider but the disturbance made him impossible to enter the state of deep meditation. He felt so frustrated and asked his master for help.
The master listened and said, “It is not a common spider but a demon. Hold a red pen in your hand when preparing to enter deep meditation. When the spider appears, draw a red circle on its body. Then I would be able to identify this demon and kill it by applying my Magic Dharma Power.”
The next day, Understanding Wisdom followed the Master’s instruction. When the spider appeared again, he quickly drew a red circle on its big belly. This action surprised the spider and it ran away immediately. As a result, Understanding Wisdom entered and stayed in deep meditation for the first time.
When he came back from the deep meditation, he suddenly discovered a red circle on his own belly.
