Being

They say that Zen is a system of contradictions and that just when we think we are beginning to understand it, it turns things on their head and we are back to square one. This is a deliberate way of helping us to change our perspective and not to become trapped by our own thought systems.

When we feel we have mastered something or understood something, our minds no longer feel there is a need to pursue it, but in actual fact, we can never become masters or fully understand anything, as there is an infinity at play, far larger than the human mind can comprehend.

If you take the same walk every day, along the same paths, seeing the same trees, hedges, fields and rivers, the walk is never the same two days in a row. The leaves are different, even if imperceptible to our eye, they will have unfurled a little more, or grown a little browner, or greener. The river has different droplets of water rushing by every single day. The wildlife we see differs, the weather has changed. If a snow has fallen over night, then that same path may be completely unrecognisable to us, although we know it so well. The snow may cover up the things we know, yet reveal to us other things we have not noticed before when our senses were bombarded with colour.

We can never claim to know everything and it would be just as useful to say we know nothing. Knowing is merely a human concept, and when we no longer strive to know, we open ourselves up to something beyond knowledge; being.