Listening with an open mind listening to nature telling us its tales can be so humbling we might get in touch with the many mysteries of life we know little about why is there something rather than nothing?
Who am I really?
What's the meaning of all this?
What is life?
And what is death?
Just pay attention to what these questions do to you might be terror,
Might be awe it's okay not to know,
Just that we have the ability to wonder is truly amazing the more we learn,
The more we realize how much we don't know open your mind and listen,
Let mother nature patiently teach you Nannin,
A Japanese master during the Meiji era received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen Nannin served tea he poured his visitor's cup full and then kept on pouring the professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself hey,
It's over full,
No more will go in like this cup,
Nannin said,
You are full of your own opinions and speculations how can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?
I was like the professor sometimes I still have the tendency to be that way but when I started practicing meditation,
I was so up in my head that nature would hardly get a word in my intentions were good,
I wanted to understand,
I wanted to be a good person someone that would make the world a better place but my tendencies were getting in the way also I think I had a fear of being ordinary,
Of being average which probably had an emotional connection with me growing up feeling in danger of being excluded of not being popular enough or wanted so in a way I didn't want enlightenment to be something ordinary I wanted it to be something special,
Something grand,
Something admirable something almost impossible because if I'd get it then I'd finally be safe I would finally be admired now these are not thoughts that were there consciously at that time it's stuff I can look back on now and recognize but I think it's really valuable to talk about these things to talk about the real life challenges on the path I had some teachers that I think spoke from deep understanding and now I recognize what they tried to teach me but at the time my own pride and my own fear of rejection drove me up in my head prevented me from hearing the real teachings so I think that acknowledging the limitations to our knowledge and our shortcomings our struggles and our emotional conditioning is really helpful on the path to peace even if it forces us down a path that seems like a detour through some difficult stuff often times the shortcuts take longer really in meditation all we do is let nature do its thing and observe we will never come to see reality by means of rational thinking Yamau Katessu,
As a young student of Zen,
Visited one master after another he called upon Dakuun of Shukuku desiring to show his attainment he said Dakuun,
Who was smoking quietly,
Said nothing suddenly he whacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe this made the youth quite angry emptiness sure is quick to anger,
Dakuun remarked in Buddhism there is a distinction between different levels of understanding the lowest level is understanding based on hearing,
It's like rote learning I've heard my teacher say that the earth is round so now I can share that understanding but it's limited this kind of understanding is also very fragile because what if my teacher told me that the earth was flat the next level of understanding is understanding acquired through thinking,
Through investigating conceptually while in the first level of understanding the mind of a parrot is sufficient in the second level we need some intellectual abilities we can draw upon previously acquired knowledge and make intelligent deductions based on those however this kind of understanding is limited too because it's still limited by the limitations of language and concepts even if you were born blind you could become a neuroscientist specializing in visual perception but you wouldn't know the experience of red or blue the third level of understanding is understanding that comes from direct experience when you yourself have had the experience of being in love only then can you really talk about it so there's not much need for theoretical knowledge in meditation it's more about grabbing the apple,
Taking a bite and tasting it for yourself only when you yourself have found peace can you really point away to others there can be no knowledge without emotion,
We may be aware of a truth yet until we have felt its force it is not ours to the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul there is quite a lot of spiritual one-upness going on in meditation circles and I know that I have been a particularly guilty contributor of that in my past wanting to get recognition or be admired or be included it's easy to talk from your first or second level understanding as if it was third level understanding but trust me when I say daring to be uncertain is so much more liberating being honest about your flaws and to allow yourself to be vulnerable is so much better than to live life with a mask you are good enough as you are the first of my teachers that I think understood one of my blind spots was Natiko back then he was a monk in the first monastery I visited and I was hell-bent on getting the deep meditations known as jhana he took me aside as a friend and shared from his experience I didn't listen to him back then but his words were seeds that would sprout much later some years later he returned to lay alive and just recently published a book with a beautiful title I could be wrong so I would encourage you dare to say I don't know dare to acknowledge how little you really understand firsthand dare to listen dare to learn dare to know your beliefs as beliefs and your opinions as opinions dare to learn dare to learn dare to learn
