One of my favorite sayings of Suzuki Roshi is "Don't be fooled!". This encapsulates Zen teaching and Buddhism. A favorite activity of Zen teachers is to cover the whole earth and all the heavens in a single phrase, like "Starting from zero" or "Nothing Holy" or "Chop wood carry water". It takes a heap of practice and understanding to whittle the cosmos into a single line, to illuminate the truth of the dharma with a turning word or phrase. "Don't be fooled" is a compassionate plea for us to live mindfully in the wholeness of Being. Sometimes these terse expressions can turn people off to Zen, how can you get inside their meaning? The Zen path is not easy pablum for the lazy, it requires strong effort and a rather indomitable spirit to practice Zen. You will keep falling down and scrapping your knee, so learning how to get up again is Zazen in daily life.
What can we be fooled by? Everything! We can be run by our desires, attracted to glitz, avoidant of suffering, insatiable in our longings, depressed in our emotions and attitude, disrespectful of others, judgmental, harsh, insensitive, and disembodied from our experience. The bottom line is that we are fooled by ourselves, by our own lack of clarity about who we are and about the fundamental intimacy and love that are the warp and woof of Dharma. Even thought we can break foolishness down into bits and pieces, at the end of the day we are fooled by the gap we cling to between ourselves and others, we are fooled by identifying with a separate reality.
I am continually amazed at my own foolishness. I find some comfort in the Zen teaching that practice is going from mistake to mistake. I think foolishness is actually one of my best teachers, for when I see myself saying things I wish I hadn't, or doing habitual things I thought I had stopped, I have a reference point for growing and maturing. It is easy to become self critical or ashamed or frustrated when you catch yourself out. But if you don't, others will! Guaranteed. That's why we practice in a loving sangha, so that we can help each other from being so foolish. Perhaps knowing your foolishness through and through is walking through the eye of a needle, or jumping off a hundred foot pole, or two arrow points meetings; you know, one of those Zen shouts. Kwatz!
one foot in my mouth
the other in a puddle
time to walk the middle
Don't Be Fooled
