the Secret Path

Daiju visited the master Baso in China. Baso asked:

What do you seek?

Enlightenment replied Daiju.

You have your own treasure house. Why do you search outside?

Baso asked. Daiju inquired:

Where is my treasure house?

Baso answered:

What you are asking is your treasure house.

Daiju was enlightened! Ever after he urged his friends:

Open your own treasure house and use those treasures.

That’s one of my favourite Zen Koans. And this a rare and one of my favorite question from students. (Mostly from college students since they’ve the career sword on their head):

I am good at this, this, this and this. But I don’t know where to go form here.

Welcome to the Club! And it’s likely that your membership is permanent because you might never know ‘the path’. I guess there is no path - you are to carve one out for yourself!

When realize that you don’t know the way, that’s when you finally see what others miss out. The miss out on it because they’ve stopped questioning themselves. Now that you stand clear off the stupid assumption that people know what they are doing and have all the answers - you are curious. Like a kid! This curiosity will take you places.

The curiosity is the way!

It’s your stairway to heaven. You will always be looking for answers, and you will always have more questions than ever before.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

No, seriously! Even I don’t know where I am going. I just like the direction. Don’t follow me, I am lost as well. Follow your intuition, your inner calling. That’s the only thing I’ve know to work.

“The farther one travels, the less one knows.” - The Beatles, The Inner Light

The more you know, the more you know that you don’t know.

I find it funny when my friends doing MBA ask me for that 5 years plan for my business. Business don’t work that ways - you cannot tell about next 5 days let alone 5 years!

Oh and that’s true for life as well -

where do you see yourself 10 years down the lane?

How lame! How do I know if I will be alive?

Well, assuming you are.

I guess I finally have an answer:

10 years down the lane, if I am alive, I will be happy, content and dancing in joy.

Have you seen little kids? Curious as cat! About everything! And they don’t ask you, they just start playing with it and figure it out. That’s the natural instinct and it freaking works! That’s how they know the latest technology! Play with it, break it, bend it and master it! I have a strong feeling that even life works that ways.

Keep questioning, keep seeking - this I am told is also the Hacker’s way.

Curiosity killed the cat; the cat died wise & content. The Frog never asked a question, died nevertheless.

You are reading a post that I wrote a long time back—at least 12 years ago. Take it with a bag of salt.