u/lastjanitor

Someone said all zen students are thieves, which is so funny it's painful, because zen teachers teach original wholeness, but even so the students still show up looking for their looker. I know have and still do. Nobody is immune. It's easy to think a foreboding zed master just popped out of their mother complete and spouting the dharma, which in a way they were, but nobody is born knowing themselves because that knowledge only comes through living. Adolescence, puberty, maturity, menopause, death. We're all always learning more about who we are and what we can be. Anybody claiming otherwise is full of shit. Speaking of here's a nod to the teachers:

>Yunmen entered the Dharma Hall for formal instruction, Masters Yunmen said: "I've said what there is to say..." A monk stepped forward, bowed, and wanted to pose a question. Master Yunmen took his staff and hit him, saying: "What good can you tell from bad? You bunch of rowdies! You're all like this monk: how dare you receive the faithful offerings of the the almsgivers! The sentient beings with bad karma are all in here--- and what dry piece of shit are they seeking to chew?" And Master Yunmen chased all the monks at once out of the hall with his staff.

>What is, is not; And what is not, yet is.//Till you have grasped this truth, you might as well/Waste no more time on fool philosophies:/But once you have grasped what these my teachings tell, /That anything is all things, that the one/Is every and the same, then where's the call/To fret for deeper knowledge? There is none/More deep than all-is-one and one-is-all.//The believing mind knows no duality/And what is dual denies the believing mind/Which, though I word you, inexpressibly/Extends beyond all language to allow/One truth in contradictions. You will find/It has no past, no future, and no now.

>Translated by Graeme Wilson >Classical Chinese Literature, Volume 1: From Antiquity to Tang Dynasty, Columbia, 2000, pg 976

Commentary: W O W ! ! !

>"Attainment in both. If you are not trapped in being or non-being, who can dare to join you? Everyone wants to leave the ordinary current, but in the final analysis you come back and sit in the ashes." -- Verses On The Five Ranks by Tozan Ryokai

I've been thinking about this seemingly inherent desire to leave the ordinary current. Magical thinking. Wanting a cheat code. When I was a kid I played games on the Nintendo. Some I could beat (Zelda, Dragon Warrior) others I could never beat (Blaster Master, Spy Hunter). Then one day the GAME GENIE came out, which let you plug in cheat codes for invincibility. It was AMAAAAAZING...for about a month. Turns out games are boring AF without any stakes. You need some skin in the game for it to have meaning. That was an important lesson for me that I've always kept close, especially whenever I'm tempted to take a short cut or be enticed by something that seems too good to be true. It turns out I like working hard for what I get in life and being ordinary is a damn fine thing to be.

Somebody come knock me over before I get too full of myself.

Too late!