[Buddha-l] Acting on emptiness

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Tuesday 21 October 2008 10:40:35 alx437 at charter.net wrote:

> To me this relates to the crucial question of how to pick a guru.

This concern quietly brings out my Inner Quaker. I just cannot do the guru 
thing. That means my only guru is myself (which could explain why I have 
become overweight over the years---I've acquired a little too much gurutva). 
This means I have to be careful to pick that in myself that is worthy of 
heeding and to weed out that in myself that it would be disastrous to heed. 
Needless to say, one cannot use oneself as a reliable guide to the best parts 
of oneself. That is why a community of friends is essential. But whom should 
one pick as a friend? And when friends are a mixture of sage and fool (as all 
people are), how does one know which is which? My inner fool no doubt 
gravitates to the inner fool in others and foolishly regards foolishness as 
sagacity, much to my inner sage's dismay.

This whole issue of how one knows what acting on emptiness looks like is 
probably the most important issue in being a practicing Buddhist (and/or a 
convinced Quaker). Like all important problems, it is fundamentally insoluble 
(or so I suspect). That's what makes life so interesting.

-- 
Richard 
http://dayamati.blogspot.com