Zen: The uncertainty of certainty is always certain
By emptychair
@innertalks (23740)
Australia
November 24, 2021 9:25pm CST
The old Zen master, Herletx Xebloski, was talking about our so often mistaken certainty of our certainty, and this is what he said to his students:
"To be certain is always painful, as Zen is like a fish in a river. Its truth is that the river is all that there is. "
"Taking it away from its truth, by putting it on the bank, into a greater degree of truth, will kill it, most painfully."
"We have to accept truth at our own level to not be pained by it."
"Only then, can we move past this in our imagination, but never in reality."
"We can only ever know God, imaginably then, in this our Earthly life."
"To accept this is the beginning of opening up to Zen. Zen, real Zen, is more imagination than thought."
"Thought mostly only creates angst and chaos, when it chases certainty for itself."
"Imagination doesn't chase, but assumes that it is already there, where it is going to."
"In case, this is still unclear to you", the old master then added, "here is a real-world example for you of what your certainty about anything does to you."
"Certainty grows on a rock like moss does, and it covers over the truth of the rock with itself."
"Truth has no certainty about it, as it remains truth, despite us attaching our own certainties to it, like this moss onto this rock."
"The uncertainty of certainty is always certain."
Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com
Do not let anything from your mind cover the truth in your heart over with itself.
3 people like this
3 responses
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
25 Nov 21
but is it? doubt is a good thing. Pandora, perhaps given more self-doubt, left the box closed.
2 people like this
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
25 Nov 21
@innertalks doubting the doiubt requires doubt in its essence.
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@innertalks (23740)
• Australia
25 Nov 21
@DocAndersen I would say that doubting the doubt more requires love.
We can only doubt doubts if we still feel an inkling of a connection to the real truth that exists in our hearts.
If we allow our mind to kill off this connection altogether, (which is really impossible though, to do fully), we will remain in doubt, until we feel the pain of separation from love, once more again too.
Doubt can be a feeling, I guess, too though, and so the essence of doubt is its connection still to this underlying feeling of love.
If we deeply feel the doubt then enough, instead of just thinking it, we might then begin to feel the real essence of the doubt, enough to start to doubt the doubt again then too.
@DocAndersen (54399)
• United States
26 Nov 21
@innertalks that is an interesting response. I suspect your definition, feeling/emotion love is different than mine.
2 people like this
@Nakitakona (59987)
• Philippines
25 Nov 21
The truthfulness of a thing is out from its untruthfulness. Thus in everything there's an opposition and in every opposition it's in everything.
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@innertalks (23740)
• Australia
25 Nov 21
Yes, here where sin exists in our world, everything might seem to have its opposite, but in God's world, no opposites exist. All is truth, and love, and goodness.
There can be no untruthfulness in truth.
Otherwise, truth is diluted away from itself, as any split, or division, in truth divides itself to itself, and truth will then fall away from you then too.
This is as Jesus Christ himself told us, in the gospel of Luke, chapter 11, verse 17:
"Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth."
Sure, we living in untruth, can see truth and climb away from untruth, by seeing in/from our hearts, the untruth of the untruth, and then we must reside in truth to be freed from untruth, as untruth of itself only captures us further, and can never free us from ourselves, and our untruths.
@innertalks (23740)
• Australia
27 Nov 21
@Nakitakona That's true, but God is much quicker to act in his own Kingdom, when someone rebels against him. He kicked old Satan, and his fellow henchman out of Heaven pretty quickly too.
It seems that we have some freedoms there in Heaven too, though, but swift action is taken against us, if we try to rise above God, and his own plans for the running of Heaven, from his goodness, and love, only.
There is no untruth in God's love, and so in a place of love like Heaven, untruth has to be moved out of there pronto.
@Nakitakona (59987)
• Philippines
26 Nov 21
@innertalks I know if I'm right but in God’s world there an opposition. The Bible says that 1/3 of the host of heaven rebelled against God and they followed Lucifer.
2 people like this
@Shiva49 (28385)
• Singapore
25 Nov 21
We attach different shades to truth and interpret it to suit our needs.
Truth can be unpleasant and we take cover from pricking our conscience.
Those who look at truth without adding any colors to it will go far rather than going around in circles of self-delusion.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23740)
• Australia
27 Nov 21
@Shiva49 Thanks, siva.
Yes, if we can start from the basics, of simply love, pure truth, and a gentle trusting belief in our father, God, as being real for us, the basics will then lead us to live from our hearts, not anymore from the complexity of thoughts that we carry in our minds, most of them in regard to our own self-satisfaction, or the fulfilling only of our own wants, and worldly desires too.
@innertalks (23740)
• Australia
28 Nov 21
@Shiva49 Yes, most of us do not want to lose face, or position, or to be thought of badly, or just as being a bit different from others either.
To be our real self, we must move away from the mould that is the generalised pattern of life here, and blaze out on our own in our really being our real self, warts and all, in the beginning, at least until, we have cured those warts, by rightful aware living, as our true selves.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28385)
• Singapore
26 Nov 21
@innertalks Well said Steve, truth itself is pristine but we should see it with our heart without mind chipping in to suit our selfish pursuits.
We need lots of cleansing as we have gotten used to coloring truth and love to suit our needs. As a species, we need to retrace some steps to get back to the basics.
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