u/Ill-Range-4954

God damn guys. The koans are spot on. You can’t sit your way through anything. You can’t learn your way through the unknown. What a silly endeavour we try to take.

What a dream, what a mirrage that we are on a path, when in fact the feeling that we are on a path is exactly not the path. Because that implies causation and that will never bring fulfilment.

Suffering implies enlightenment. And enlightenment implies suffering. You will never get away with just one. And you will never get away from either if you look for either of them.

The illusory self is based on causation and future fulfilment through systematic or gradual unfolding. That’s true in the end, in a sense, but eventually you fall into the grinder of the no-thing, no-fixed story, no-time endless moment of now, which is not now as opposed to then, it is Sunyata. It is this here.

But when you think or know you arrived you then will likely get back on the wheel trying to figure it out once and for good.

It’s not about that, man. Ye who enter here lose all hope! Lose the hope that the pasta will turn out good! Lose the ideal that you will look cool at the supermarket! Lose the imagination that you will have a perfect life!

Smell the rain. Listen to the sounds around you, don’t worry too much and let thoughts come and go, sit if you want, walk if you want, sleep, eat, study, work, have some fun.

Trust that you can’t bite the iron bull. But if you don’t trust that, keep trying. Don’t give up.

In a village forgotten between hills and cigarette smoke, there lived Gabi. No one really knew what he was searching for. Sometimes he seemed to want peace. Other times it looked like he just wanted another beer, another long night, another joke shouted too loudly so he wouldn’t have to hear his own thoughts.

But one evening, after the alleys had gone silent and even the dogs stopped barking, Gabi heard something.

Not a voice.
Not an angel.
Not some mystical revelation.

Just the wind humming through the electric wires:

“Gate gate… paragate…”

Gabi looked around.

“Who’s there, man?”

Nothing.

Only the huge yellow moon hanging above the village like a tired light bulb.

The next day, Gabi left. No plan. No map. Just a torn hoodie and a bag of pretzels. He walked for a long time. Through forests, past abandoned gas stations, across fields where time itself seemed to rust.

And with every step, he heard it again:

“Gate gate…”

Go beyond.
Keep going.

At first, he didn’t understand. He thought he had to reach somewhere. Maybe a temple. A hidden monastery. Some white-bearded guru who would finally explain the meaning of life.

But on the road, something slowly began falling away from him.

First fear.
Then shame.
Then all the stories about who he was supposed to be.

And one night, sitting alone beneath the sky beside a small fire, Gabi suddenly burst out laughing.

A wild, honest laugh.

“Man… this samsara thing really fooled me good.”

Then the wind returned.

Clearer now.
Closer.

“Paragate…”

Beyond beyond.

And for a moment, Gabi saw that all his running had been made of smoke. All the worries, all the labels, all the desperate attempts to become “someone.”

Like waves believing they are separate from the ocean.

Then he lowered his head and quietly said:

“Bodhi Svaha…
May even the last fool in the village be able to see.”

And for the first time in his life, he no longer wanted to run anywhere.

He hadn’t become a saint.
He didn’t levitate.
He didn’t glow.

He was still just Gabi.

But something heavy had disappeared.

And the next morning, when he stood up and continued walking, it felt as though every step was whispering on its own:

“Gate Gate Gabi…
Gate Gate…”