Show Me Don't Tell Me

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

There is a maxim in writing which has wide application in life: "Show me, don't tell me!" I said this to son Jacob last night. I could see he struggled with it and finally asked how.

Ahhh, the answer. A koan has no answer. We fool ourselves if we think there is an answer. Only unfolding questions and our presence matter It is the authenticity of our presence as we address the questions that is the "show me" of life..

We live in our heads. Its a sickness we Americans inherited from the Age of Enlightenment which really was a turn toward a sort of narcolepsy of the soul. We left our affective, intuitive dimensions to wither and put our energy and nurturance into our reason and intellect. In short, we thought ourselves to sleep.

So. here we are today, living in our heads, thinking, thinking, thinking. Not bad. Thinking is a tool. A tool. Thinking is not reality. Nor are our thoughts who we are.

Who we are is what we are. How do we know what we are? First, we might stop thinking about it. Thinking separates us from the what of it. We might feel what we are, but feeling, like thought, is internal. Second, we might look to evidence, our tracks in the sand, if you will. These tracks are our karmic footprints: they include our work and our relationships. But these are mere shadows, a base relief of ourselves.

So, if I ask you to show me yourself, how would you do it?

We Buddhists might argue there is no self to show. OK. Then what could you possibly show the world? The truth of the matter is that there is a self. Its just that the self is fluid and always changing. It is an amalgam in process. Because it is not permanent does not mean that it does not exist. Still, this amalgam is not our thought about this amalgam, that's just our thought about it. What is the self? It is only what is shown.

So, we are back to square one: show me, don't tell me.

When I look at my behavior, I see my true nature. My work is to extinguish the filters, thoughts, fears, and all other obstacles so that my true nature is an expression of my actuality. .I live to be free and easy in the marketplace. I live to be. If there is consonance between these and my actual behavior, fine. If not, I have work to do. Our True Nature is not that well hidden. But the layers that surround it are insufferably tenacious.

Be tenacious as well, be free.

Be well.