“You have something very strange,” replied Bankei. “Let me see what you have.”
“Just now I can’t show it to you,” replied the other.
“When can you show it to me?” asked Bankei.
“It arises unexpectedly,” replied the student.
“Then,” concluded Bankei, “it must not be your true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. Think that over.”
Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
101 Zen Stories,
75 Temper
۞۞۞۞۞Too often I have heard myself say things like, “That was my disease talking.” This is less honest than the foolish excuse that it was the Devil that made me do it. Doesn’t admitting that the disease is mine give me the responsibility to dispose of it? Just the act of saying these failings and shortcomings are mine is a sort of clinging to them that is contrary to any hope for release from them. This is not to say that I live in denial but, once named and claimed it is time to let go of it and discover a lightness of being. This I can do if I learn to pause when agitated or doubtful, take a breather, and seek the Heart of Compassion for the right thought or action. It takes practice but it gradually becomes a working part of the mind… gradually… and I do mean gradually. Then, instead of it being the way I think I ought to behave, a true mind directs the whole of my being. I am no longer running the show but I am empowered by a greater purpose and dynamic.
geo 5,278
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