Now that might seem like a weird question as the answer might seem obvious...but let's look at another coin.
The Coin of Life. It has two sides as well. It has a heads and tails, but let's call them 'positive outlook' and 'negative outlook'
How do you perceive this coin? Which side is the true and real coin of life?
To look and grasp at life with either a positive or negative outlook is to not see the total coin. To choose one over the other is to deny the reality of the other. Both outlooks are in many ways 'deluded'. Both are ghosts. To grab at one and reject the other is to live in suffering...even tho the positive feels better...it is still a trap of the mind and will continue your suffering...especially when negative shows up and you don't want it.
Zen is about seeing the Coin in its totality. No thoughts of one side better than the other. It is a Coin...just as it is. You use both sides all the time.
In Budo this is also very important. To grasp and hold onto only certain 'techniques' as good or bad disrupts your ability to flow with what is needed moment by moment. You are trying to use only one side of the coin...dumb! It is important to embrace the fight and use the coin in its totality. It is there. Use it. To reject one side for the other will get your ass handed to you.
Hope my morning rambling makes some sense...I have to get to work and maybe will edit this later or wait for comments.
Hands palm to palm,
Shinzen
Make sense to me :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Felicia...as I was rereading I would like to note that we always use the whole coin...it is just that we prefer not to 'see' it's wholeness...trying to use only the head of a coin is ignorance...we suffer then we tails shows up...the tail is always there however and must also be embraced. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteHeads I'm right, tails you're wrong ...
ReplyDelete... never fails me, ahem! ;-)
Hahaha Doug...thanks ^-^
ReplyDeleteNice analogy, simple yet powerful.
ReplyDeleteI'd say neither is true and both are true at the same time :D
Even many so-called "nondualists" are trapped with onesidedness. "You and I are not real", "everything is One, separateness is unreal", etc.
Like you said... dumb!
:))
Hands palm to palm.
_/|\_
"No Country For Old Men"
ReplyDeleteAnton Chigurh: What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: Sir?
Anton Chigurh: The most. You ever lost. On a coin toss.
Gas Station Proprietor: I don't know. I couldn't say.
[Chigurh flips a quarter from the change on the counter and covers it with his hand]
Anton Chigurh: Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Call it?
Anton Chigurh: Yes.
Gas Station Proprietor: For what?
Anton Chigurh: Just call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Well, we need to know what we're calling it for here.
Anton Chigurh: You need to call it. I can't call it for you. It wouldn't be fair.
Gas Station Proprietor: I didn't put nothin' up.
Anton Chigurh: Yes, you did. You've been putting it up your whole life you just didn't know it. You know what date is on this coin?
Gas Station Proprietor: No.
Anton Chigurh: 1958. It's been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Look, I need to know what I stand to win.
Anton Chigurh: Everything.
Gas Station Proprietor: How's that?
Anton Chigurh: You stand to win everything. Call it.
Gas Station Proprietor: Alright. Heads then.
[Chigurh removes his hand, revealing the coin is indeed heads]
Anton Chigurh: Well done.
[the gas station proprietor nervously takes the quarter with the small pile of change he's apparently won while Chigurh starts out]
Anton Chigurh: Don't put it in your pocket, sir. Don't put it in your pocket. It's your lucky quarter.
Gas Station Proprietor: Where do you want me to put it?
Anton Chigurh: Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is.
[Chigurh leaves and the gas station proprietor stares at him as he walks out]
Thanks.
ReplyDelete