What saying am I in? Which phrase is me?

I remember first learning about horoscopes. Finding out your birthday made you YOU.

Remember that thrill?

How special I felt to be a superior pisces (!) and how lame everyone else was (über lame). I lacked the imagination to see from other's perspectives how equally lame I was in their superior Sagittarius eyes (or whatever kinda eyes they had, maybe even vegan/Mithra-ian/nubian/Cherokeen eyes).

Unable to see myself through others eyes I couldn't see them through my own. All I knew was I was teh awesome and everyone else was teh stoopid.

I still feel that way.

I AM TEH AWESOME. U R TEH STOOPID.

But these days I also chuckle and smirk when I think it, knowing it's going through everyone else's minds too.

"Right or wrong, you side with your feelings" - Dan from HBO Series: DEADWOOD.

I find myself in that quote. Which is silly, because a quote can't encapsulate a person. Neither can a feeling or even a horoscope (even though pisces still rule!).

The more I struggle to not struggle with zen work the more I realize how little of who I am now could be shared with the person I thought I was growing up. That kind of thinking would have terrified younger me, but now I laugh about it.

To be too stoopid to be insulted or too smart to care?

What's the difference between a sage and an ordinary person?

I dunno, maybe Gushan can tell us all.

Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching #184

Master Gushan said to an assembly,

If you have not yet mastered the great task, and have not tapped the artery of the source, avidly memorizing words and phrases is making a living in conceptual consciousness. Haven't you read the saying, 'Conception is a robber; consciousness makes waves in which everyone is drowned, without any freedom.'

If you have not yet penetrated the great matter, it's best to stop, ceasing all striving, so body and mind are simple and serene. Refrain from fixation at all times, and the matter will actually be easily revealed.

This is something I say to you by way of encouragement, just because I have no choice. The ancients called it medicine for a dead horse. If it is a realized individual, talking to someone this way is like talking in your sleep.

Now what about you - can you actually use a single word from the twelve-part teachings? Can you actually use a single phrase from the sayings of the adepts? If it is the twelve-part teachings, which teaching are you in? If it is the sayings of the adepts, in what saying will we find you?

Therefore it is said that the twelve-part teachings cannot express it, ordinary and sacred cannot contain it, the passage of time cannot move it, verbal expression cannot cover it.

Talk like this is generally for people who've gotten their heads stuck in doctrine, to free them up; but if you talk this way to someone who's never given a hint of that, he'll grab you and ask why you're babbling nonsense - and you can't blame him.

You must be very discerning. Do not fail to distinguish the auspicious from the ominous. If anyone can distinguish, come forth and demonstrate it.

Submitted March 30, 2023 at 02:45AM by jawnjonezzz https://ift.tt/C57MBo8