Until the next time …

Egoic Mind:  Lessons learned and time traveled … still nothing changes.

Gnani:  And yet EVERYTHING changes at the same time.

Egoic Mind:  Perhaps.

Gnani:  Undoubtedly.

Egoic Mind:  But still I seek relief.  Respite from the pain and storms that attack from inside this bag of flesh and waste.

Gnani:  Seeking is part of the enquiry.  However if you continue to seek WHAT instead of WHOM you will forever be holding the magnifying glass at the wrong object.  Turn the lens around.  WHO is seeking?

Egoic Mind:  I am.

Gnani:  I AM.

Egoic Mind: In truth I do not care about the enquiry these days.  I have not sat Zazen for a dozen moons or more.

Gnani:  The enquiry is not about memorizing a sutra or chanting a mantra.  With or without a sangha the dharma stands naked in its Truth.

Egoic Mind:  But if I am not diligent …

Gnani:  WHO is diligent?  Who is indolent?

Egoic Mind:  Who cares?

Gnani: That which seeks itSelf.

Egoic Mind:  And what of THAT which seeks only relief from this moment?

Gnani:  As everything changes and is changing in fact right now … the relief that you think is sought will soon be found albeit in a transient fashion.  However brief the period of pain free may be, it will appease the attention deficient egoic mind and the enquiry will appear to cease.  Until the wave comes again and yeild yet another opportunity to SEE the eye of the Storm.

Egoic Mind:  So, I SEEK only when there is something I want to rid myself of.  The seeking never amounts to anything because I have turned the eye glass outward onto reflected object of my Self.  And when the tides change and CHANGE occurs so that the object I have deemed intolerable is for a moment appeased .. then the active form of seeking also ceases.  Until the next time.

Gnani::  Until the next time.

Egoic Mind:  Well that seems like a complete waste of time.

Gnani:  Lessons learned and time traveled …

Egoic Mind:  … still nothing changes.

Gnani:  Until of course CHANGE happens.

Egoic Mind:  Since CHANGE will occur regardless … does it really MATTER what I do in the meantime?

Gnani: The sun rises and sets each day .. .regardless of how time is spent.  Does it matter how you spend the daylight hours?

Egoic Mind:  Ultimately no, if everything is only transient .. however it FEELS better to spend the daylight hours in service of something.  When the monkey mind is wild the day can be “lost” to the fears and ghosts of the mental jungle.  But when the attention is put instead on that which creates laughter and joy .. then the day FEELS like it has been better spent.

Gnani:  And does THAT matter at all to the SUN .. how you have spent the daylight hours?

Egoic Mind:  Gosh no.  I should not think that the SUN cares at all how time is spent.  But I am not here to please the SUN.  Am I?

Gnani:  Are you?

Egoic Mind:  There is a stillness in that question that comes and takes everything away for a moment.  No answer.  The essence of sun IS that which I am.  I can feel that.  I can feel the light particles as part of my being.  I can feel the catalyst of change that occurs inside of me when the sun shines upon my skin.  I am part of the sun, as well as the rain and the air and the water.  I am that at my essence

Gnani:  In the essense of that bag of flesh and waste?

Egoic Mind:  Perhaps I was a bit short sited when I claimed that was all I was earlier.

Gnani:  Sun and shit perhaps.

Egoic Mind:  Yes.  LOL.  Laughter and joy.

Gnani:  Which are both catalyst for change.

Egoic Mind:  So then it DOES matter how time is spent.

Gnani:  Turn the looking glass around .. and SEEK THAT which is in enquiry.

Egoic Mind:  I would of course … but as time as passed .. and the obligatory “change” has occurred and that transient moment of pain in the midst of a storm has now faded.  I am once again not inclined.

Gnani:  Until the next time.

Egoic Mind:  Until the next time.