It's kinda funny. I haven't writen here in a while, and yet each time I do, I'm in the same place mentally as when I left this place.... I wonder if perhaps it's because when I'm down and discouraged, when the desperate nature of self imposed desire and guilt come looming over me, crushing me down, that I feel like doing something to rid myself of the pain and discontent that I feel as my very being within existance.


It plages the mind that word, existance. It's never ceasing, continually dragging on and on. There is no end, no beginning. The future and the past seem as though their the same thing. While in this discursive time imposed nexus of existance all I feel is the same thing over and over again, no matter how many days go on. It's as though the tape is looped, and no matter how many different ways I handle the same kind of situation, because I am me, the outcome is always the same.

It's somewhat discouraging that I can't live the life I want to, with things familiar and close to me, and not change some.

I remember when I first heard the word "Zen". It seemed fake. Like a made up word, a drop of jibberish that bounced off the tounge in some discoursory exchange of profanities between two merchants in a heated exhange over the going price on a single grain of rice. When I first heard the word "Tao" the same thing panged in the back of my head. But neither phrase stuck. Some years later I would become facinated by people and places, specifically in Japan. It then dawned on me that Taoism and Zen might be real....


Having studied "The Way" or "The Tao" in some great detail It's come to my attention that when poorly implimented with proper exicution, geniouses of military combat, mechanical engineering, and political sciences are born. When impllimented perfectly and properly, sages are born, roaming through life in the abstracts of society, understanding what is, by existing in what is not. It's dualities and parallels are numorous as the grains of sand that cascade the beaches and shores of every costline. I soon parted with it's dichotomic nature and searched in a more serious attempt for something less.... obvious.


Thats when I remembered the word Zen. In the beginning of this year, april to be exact. I picked up a book called "The Three Pillars Of Zen". It gave me the best insight into somethings I had always known and thought about, or experianced that I could never put a finger on. And even now I can't place a solid location on the expression and manner in which these states of mind, seemingly so as visions and dreams, that would allow me to express these feelings and essences aptly and do them justice. I think Bruce Lee put it best: "It is like a finger, pointing to the moon *thwap* - DON"T concentrate on the finger; or you will miss all that heavenly glory..."

There are a million such phrases that capture a sliver of the true meaning of Zen, yet none of them aptly pegs it down into a deffinition that one can calculate rationally or logically. I've tried time and time again to fit the abstract lines into focus, and view the entire picture. It's come to my attention that as of late, it's impossible to do as I am now. - If I want to see the world, life, the Universe - Existance its very self; to feel it, be it, understand it, respect it, simply become ONE with IT - I cannot be seperate to anything else. My attachments to music, art, science, emotions, logic, hunger, sound, light, physical feeling - everything, I must let go. Only then can I grasp what I seek. There is no foot hold to help me to the next step, it is simply a great chasam that I must hurtle in one volt. To hop from one spire to the next, using only my own inate, intrinsic strength to guide and propell me, untill each hop is but a single step, to which my balance is perfect and unflawed. To simply exist perfectly of no concious will, to let my soul guide itself, and offer help to those who would walk the same true path.


Somewhere in the above can the Aim of Zen - the Pillars there of, be seen - though ofcourse, simply within ones self. There exists no such dichotomy of "right, and wrong" as one would find in Taoism - though according to the Tao such things are meaningless even if they exist or not. Such things are abstract, they are the meeting points of cognitave thought. A conclusion is reached when a crossing question matches with physical evidence - weather or not the conclusion is true or false, right or wrong, correct or incorrect - is meaningless; only that ones pure mind has been poisoned. In reaching out side yourself, searching for something else. Trying to understand your own existance by making sense of something that isn't you... always seemed foolish to me. I've always known when I could do something, when I should do soemthing. But because I reached outside myself for guidance, I've restrained, so much to the point where i've become reclusive... observing and never acting. Living the Dharma... is no more difficult than not living the Dharma. BY this I mean action and inaction carry with them the same conciquences. Correct, timely, and perfect action as well as correct, timely, and perfect inaction accomplish absolutely nothing. Which is as it should be. In a perfect world life would flow as freely as a river that empties into the sea. Incorrect, untimely, and imperfect action however, accomplishes something, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Yet, this progression, this entity that takes a shape - is poisoned thought, it is addiction. We strive toil and strive, we hunger and hurt - we suffer. And why? Because we chose to exisit so. There is indeed only one choice: To chose, or not to chose.

Those who chose the latter of the two, simply exist, free and perfect, bound by nothing, mastered by no one, for in their action and inaction, they exist within the universe as the universe, instead of a single part of it.

Given the options - It seems to me that there really is no choice - we all do exist perfect and free. We simply don't know or, don't realize it or don't belive it because we lack the courage to attempt to stand on our own feet. The strength and personal commitment to understanding fundimental and essential nature of ourselves is what causes delusion. When we belive we cannot be the master of ourself, to lead our own lives and let our own self guide without thought or ponderance, we allow the influances of the wind and water to up root ourselfs, and toss us through the wind, to tarry our petals and cast our minds around the bottom of a dirty well.

We live day in and day out asking what more there is to live, what else can I do, what haven't I done, why didn't I do something, when will change come - can I exceed myself, can I let go? Do I suffer? Or does suffering, suffer me? The mind is plauged with thoughts that then strip away the seeds of hope - the wind blows harder and the birds eat the seeds before the safety of the earth can embrace them. Now stricken and hopeless, with nothing in reserve a lovely bloom slowly wilts and seemingly dies.

Why is this so? Simply - because it is what we want, what we choose. If you choose not to choose, and simply to live, no such choice exists in the first place. Even the frailest flower can survive the rages of the typhoons and tornado's if properly rooted, and so can any man or woman who so chooses to.

But converting the psyche from the strangleing ivey that it's been allowed to become and resuming the grace and serenity of the lotus requires pruning, which may be among the cruelest of pains to endure - the admission of error and guilt, the concious recognition of imperfection, the acceptance of a mistake. It's as if staring at the blistering sun, watching your hips be severed from your body at the belly. A mortal wound one simply must endure, accept, and heal from. A barrier by which you simply must restrain the temptation to turn back to your prior ways, and with out hesitance or thought, jump from spire to spire, landing perfectly - leaving all your delusions of egoism, altruism, - leaving your very self behind. Completely remove the conept of a "self" that has done the things you are so ashamed of, and let it return to the earth from where it came, back into purity, into nothingness - for in truth, no such feelings and pains exist if you do not summon yourself to belive them real.

So where does all this lead? Zen .... It's the crow-bar of irrationality, by which you remove the corrosive and damaging seal upon your true nature. Understanding the uses of this crow-bar, and where to apply it, and knowing how to cultivate the contents you release... This is Zen. There is no "way" or "path" - there is no crow bar, no delusion and no suffering. There simply is the universe to which you are one with, you've only to realize this and embrace your origin as a child does its thumb in slumber.


"it is like a finger, pointing to the moon...." Zen is neither the finger, nor the moon, nor the heavenly glory but as the first to words of the quote say: "It is".


I think perhaps somewhere within the above, lies the answer, and yet - There was no question...