Relative Certainty

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

Zen always has a person by the hair, short or otherwise, and yanks them about. Everything is relative to everything else, form has no substance, everything is in flux, we teach; yet 'no substance' takes form, in the flux there is some 'thing' and there is an absolute. In Zen, context and method are everything.

To say something, anything, is always incorrect because words are pale pictures of actual experience. We say behavior reveals our understanding. Much like a flower reveals the soil.

People can catch themselves on hooks of their own making. Waving in the wind as a fish flopping about out of water, we create much ado with our words. And so our great ancestors often cite: silence is thunder.

On the other hand, words are one of the major conveyances of our thoughts and feelings. Silence may speak volumes but is always open to complete misunderstanding. Of course a true Master could care less and would only see this misadventure as a teaching opportunity.

Care should always be taken with our speech and we should never be so certain about the truth we think we possess. Sometimes silence is thunder, sometimes its just an invitation. When we understand form is emptiness we should immediately understand emptiness is form. The relative only makes sense in the backdrop of an absolute.

Be well.