An Agile Koan – If You Meet Buddha on the Road, Kill Him

[From the Archive: Originally posted at Amplify.com Jun 23, 2009]

Lest we forget, and let Agile orthodoxies (or any other orthodoxies, for that matter) become our master. I particularly like the thought:

“How often we make circumstances our prison and other people our jailers!”

And yes, the paradox of even mentioning this koan is not lost on me :}

Amplify ’d from If You Meet The Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!

The Zen Master warns: “If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him!” This admonition points up that no meaning that comes from outside ourselves is real. The Buddhahood of each of us has already been obtained. We need only recognise it. Killing the Buddha on the road means destroying the hope that anything outside of ourselves can be our master. We must each give up the master without giving up the search. The importance of things lies in the way we have learned to think about them. How often we make circumstances our prison and other people our jailers! At our best we take full responsibility for what we do and what we choose not to do. The most important struggles take place within the self.

Read more at If You Meet The Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!