Image by Ryan McGuire from Pixabay

A priest was giving a religious discourse to the inmates of an asylum.  He was a few minutes into his sermon when one of the inmates started waving his arms about and shouting, “do we have to listen to this rubbish?”  The priest paused, and looked at the support worker who was in attendance and asked, “shall I stop speaking?”  The support worker replied, “no, it’s OK, carry on, you won’t hear any more from him; he only has one sane moment every seven years…

Indeed, one sane moment every seven years; that’s something that a lot of people would give their right arms for in this world that seems to have gone completely mad.  It is so difficult in this day and age, to keep sane in a completely bonkers world.  The problem is that we have all been corrupted by our conditioning, which started at a very early age.

The beauty of Zen, is that once it finds you, you can rest in the natural flow of things as chaos ensues all around.  The thing is not to get sucked into the drama, but rather to remain a witness as the drama plays itself out before your eyes.  In other words, be the stage, not the play.  These days, I’m getting much better at doing this; but I haven’t quite got the knack of never succumbing to the tricks of the egoic mind.  Even though I have noticed more and more lately, that everything I need just seems to flow effortlessly to me.  I still find myself on occasion playing one of the characters in an unnecessary soap opera.  Then inevitably, I have to feel the pain that comes with it before the penny drops and I revert back to the natural flow of the poetry that is Zen.

Don’t listen to the priest (ego), but equally, don’t be content with one sane moment every seven years.  Be neither sane nor insane… Be…