Zen Stories, now and then

temple disconnection
Originally uploaded by cjb22

Knowing that we are looking for something we already have and are does not, of course, mean that the journey is
unnecessary, only that there is a vast and sublime joke
waiting to be discovered at its end.
Andrew Harvey, 'The Direct Path'

So, off I tramp. Much a do about nothing, all around the mulberry bush.
Becoming a scientist was never much in doubt. They love to hypothesize and think -
always with the question.

Zen Story One: How Grass and Trees Become Enlightened

One day a fifty-year-old student of enlightenment said to Shinkan: "I have studied the Tendai school of thought since I was a little boy, but one thing in it I cannot understand. Tendai claims that even the grass and trees will become enlightened. To me this seems very strange."
"Of what use is it to discuss how grass and trees become enlightened?" asked Shinkan. "The question is how you yourself can become so. Did you even consider that?"
"I never thought of it that way," marveled the old man.
"Then go home and think it over," finished Shinkan.

I find I do not want to explain myself. No talking it through with the girls.
I am almost sick of words. Almost.
I want to experience and then just let it be.
No labels. No putting it to words.
In labeling I feel a torque.
Is it a twist of fear? Yes.
Is it a twist of “Not True?” Yes.
It is a twist of ego? Yes.

I am almost sick of words. But not quite - damn, I’m blogging still
Still
I am not quite anything.
Best case label, “I am Nothing.”
That is so obvious. Obvious oblivion.
Then there is that torque -
How can I deny: the tree, the table, the sky, the thoughts?
All That must be at least Something. I know that truck can hit me hard.

So that must be something And thus I can’t be Nothing.

But I am.
Nothing.
Staring me in the face
The contradiction is so funny. I laugh hugely, silently
And that is contradiction too
as no grin breaks upon my face.

Rumor had it Angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Maybe I’m an angel… no, that was just a rumor.
More likely, I’m a pin head
Dancing on the Void
Dancing, Dancing
Insisting on the pin head.