In this story,
Our teacher,
Nanning,
Like the teacher who met the samurai in the story of the Gates of Paradise,
Is amazingly resourceful.
He quickly establishes an action to transmit a teaching that probably will leave a deep impression on this university professor.
This professor is a character that we can picture as a very learned person,
Like a theorist.
We can even imagine him approaching with a certain arrogance,
As a smarty-pants,
Even with a competitive attitude.
Notice that these attitudes can only arise from a feeling of lack,
Out of an unsatisfied and captive person,
Like most of us.
I have rescued two messages from this meeting.
The most obvious highlights that our character,
Our neurosis,
Is not compatible with our spiritual development.
Our ego separates us from Zen,
From our state of bliss.
Our personality and the difficulties attached to it,
Such as vanity,
Dishonesty,
Fear,
Our different attachment motifs,
Etc.
,
They are all antagonistic to a state of calm and plenitude.
If we want to reap the fruits of Zen,
Or any other spiritual practice,
Our conditioned character has to diminish.
In fact,
Awakening implies the dissolution of our personality as we know it.
Our development entails a death in life,
And its subsequent resurrection.
The other message is a little more subtle,
And reveals that if we focus on Zen,
Or any other meditative practice,
We need to empty ourselves of concepts,
Or rather,
Leave our conceptual vision aside.
The narrow mind has to give way to the big mind.
To do this,
When I introduce the sense of the sight into my meditations,
Normally by the end of an Insight of Vipassana meditation session,
I encourage you to look around,
Contemplating the shapes and the colors,
Not the objects of which you know their names and functions.
Try to perceive as if you had never been on this planet.
Simply behold shapes and colors.
To finish,
I would like to ask you whether you recognize when this logical and conceptual thinking gives way to the state of contemplation.
If so,
Keep feeding it.
