Rob posted a story here and we've all seen it before.
When Banzan was walking through a market he overheard a conversation between a butcher and his customer. "Give me the best piece of meat you have," said the customer. "Everything in my shop is the best," replied the butcher. "You cannot find here any piece of meat here that is not the best." At these words Banzan became enlightened.
And then I realized:
Everyone is doing his damnedest to be exactly what he is, and is succeeding perfectly in doing so.
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What happened to vegetarianism? Or was it before plants were discovered as source of food for humans?
"Everyone is doing his damnedest to be exactly what he is, and is succeeding perfectly in doing so."
J- is the above realization yours?
Everything happens, unfolds as it should, eh?
I believe...or else, something different would occur. But since it didn't, and we have the only thing we can have, which is
now-ness, what else is left for us to question?
Yes, succeeding perfectly at being who we are.
“Now is the time to know that all that you do is sacred....Now is the time for you to deeply compute the impossibility that there is anything but grace." Hafiz
Isaiah, yes, that's from me.
However, "should" would imply that "should not" exists. Everything merely unfolds as it does.
Since all we have is now, my next question is always, "now what?" - not only do I feel as though I'm left holding the bag, but hey, the bag is empty and oops, it's not there anyway.
You are, right now, doing what is most important to you, right now - by definition. We'll leave the explanations of "why" to somebody else. Just so, you are being yourself, perfectly.
The meat is doing brilliantly at being meat. If one piece is trying to be a fig, then it is a piece of meat trying to be a fig - and it's doing that perfectly and without effort.
I loved your response to Tommy. "The meat is doing brilliantly at being meat. If one piece is trying to be a fig, then it is a piece of meat trying to be a fig - and it's doing that perfectly and without effort."
It sounds like this koan really opened up something for you. Banzan smiles. Rinzai does too.
looks like I'm not the only one searching for purpose & existence in my life. Maybe we don't have the same angle to look at it, but it all comes down to the same thing: who are we and who are the others around us.
Anyway, you're right when you say that we do what we're best at, but maybe the problem is that we don't understand that the other is doing his/her best, no?
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