La femme a une puissance singulière qui se compose de la réalité de la force et de l'apparence de la faiblesse.
- Victor Hugo
VIIII or IX ...
Untitled, Metropolitan Museum of Art: Asian Art
Purchase, William Spielman Bequest, in memory of William and Bette-Ann Spielman, 2009 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Medium: Copper alloy
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/75359
"Before enlightenment, no one can rely on strength. Enlightenment comes across by itself, and enlightenment can only be helped by a ray of enlightened power." Dogen Zenji
[Dogen Zenji (19 January 1200 - 22 September 1253) was a Japanese monk, writer, poet, philosopher and Zen master, and the founder of the Soto sect in Japan.]
Being lost and being enlightened are like two sides of the same coin, in fact they are one and the same. So you don't have to be in panic to seek enlightenment, but when you are lost, you should just be lost.
You may try the hardest to “enlightenment, enlightenment” and think, for example, that we must do Zazen sitting meditation, read Buddhist scriptures, and so on.
But it is a force beyond enlightenment. Enlightenment comes to you far beyond enlightenment. In other words, Dogen teaches us that enlightenment has nothing to do with the efforts we make to try our hardest to find a way to become enlightened. Enlightenment comes one day out of the blue. So if you are lost now, then do not hesitate to be lost. Not ‘more lost’, but ‘firmly lost’.
It's okay to be ‘just lost.’ Just think so and just be lost.
“Who will write the story of what could have been? That, if someone writes it, Will be the true history of humanity. What exists is the real world—not us, just the world. We are, in reality, what doesn’t exist. I am who I failed to be.”
—
Fernando Pessoa
“But what's puzzling you Is the nature of my game”