ENLIGHTENED PURSUITS
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Ideas
  • Quick Thoughts
  • Journal
  • Long-Form
  • Poetry
  • Gallery
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Join Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service

"You will always find an answer in the sound of water."

​- Zhuangzi

Follow the Stream

12/25/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture

​Be soft in your practice. Think of the method as a fine silvery stream, not a raging waterfall. Follow the stream, have faith in its course. It will go on its own way, meandering here, trickling there. It will find the grooves, the cracks, the crevices. Just follow it. Never let it out of your sight. It will take you.


- Sheng-yen


A child grew up in an old-fashioned household, and likewise, they held traditional values.

And of course, the children were to be held to the same standard.

However, the children were taught at public school where there are children who come from every background imaginable.

Yet, most of the children who went were brought up in more modern and progressive households that encouraged various explorations and phases that adolescents go through.

This child was more of the odd man out than one would think, and unfortunately…

...he was picked on for it.

Nothing too harsh, but he brushed up against many cold shoulders.

But he had a good friend that was in fact very different from him.

While the kid from the traditional family wore dress pants and his shirt tucked in, his friend wore colorful basketball shoes and ripped shorts.

While the traditional kid kept his hair trimmed short, his friend wore it long to the shoulders with one side shaved off.

The hair is really what his friend took to when he considered giving his square friend “cool lessons.”

“Let it all hang out.”

“Don’t be so uptight…”

“Be unique.”

While the traditional kid did not think he was any more uptight than the average kid, and that his parents made sure to tell him of his uniqueness, he nevertheless had enough respect for his friend to push him on his claims.

“Why do ‘you’ have to show your uniqueness so wild and crazily?”

“...doesn’t ‘your’ style also turn people off?”

“Why do you want to change who I am?”

And with this conversation between these two friends, both considered each others advice and remade themselves for the better.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2020
    January 2020
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Consciousness
    Fear
    God
    Happiness
    Illusion
    Living Well
    On Reality
    Philosophy
    Poetry
    Self Improvement
    Sense
    Spirituality
    Thought
    Time
    Wisdom
    You
    Zen Stories

    Benchmark Email
    Email Marketing Services by Benchmark
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Ideas
  • Quick Thoughts
  • Journal
  • Long-Form
  • Poetry
  • Gallery
  • Forum
  • Donate
  • Join Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service