Ignorant/Enlightened

You should know that so far as Buddha-nature is concerned, there is no difference between and enlightened man and an ignorant one. What makes the difference is that one realizes it, while the other is ignorant of it.

The Sutra of Hui Neng

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I have been noticing for some time that there are people everywhere that hold to deeply felt beliefs that defy their I.Q.'s. This knife cuts both ways… it doesn't take much to get through the door. It doesn't matter how smart, clever or dumber than a block of bricks I might be. It doesn't matter a whit how I package my experience if I have been touched, awakened or otherwise blessed: the mask falls off and all my beliefs come to naught. I still have the same cells in my body and the same mass of neurons tucked between my ears. 

     The greatest difference that I can see is that I am more apt to act on compassion… I haven't been let in on to some arcane mystery. I am just as I am and that is all there is to it. When I surrendered to a power greater than myself, I didn't have a name for what I had surrendered to. I wasn't about to make up anything about God: I had already gone that route. I simply surrendered it all and just figured that, if there was a God at all, it would be revealed to me in time. However, something did happen and I couldn't deny it… I had entered the realm of the Spirit of Compassion and from that moment on there was no turning back. The key to that door I entered is the willingness to enter. All it takes then is the surrender of that will. From there on I can think I know anything I wish to but it behooves me to know what an act of blind-faith is and what my actual experience with the divine is.

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