Made by Shingen

Although we think that we are looking at the same cup, the reality of life is that each one of us looks at this cup with their own retinas, with their own feelings, and from their own particular angle. The most understandable example is money. A one-thousand yen bill for a penniless person is totally different in value as well as in actual feeling than it would be for a millionaire. The same is true for an item of clothing or a drop of water. Each of us lives within our own world. Nevertheless, since childhood we have been trained to abstract reality by using words. We do so by habit and then we come to believe that all of us share the same social world in which we express everything in words. For instance, now I am speaking and you are listening. It seems we understand each other. But it is questionable whether each one of you understands my words completely and in the same way.

Shinjin Datsuraku (身心脱落), “Dropping off body and mind,”

Start each day as if you were born that day. Always make every day your first.

So generally the advice given is to just practice without trying to understand what’s happening, because the only way to actually learn something is to engage with the thing itself without adding your own idea. If you add your own idea, then you’re just engaging with your idea, and not the thing you’re trying to learn.

The crooked tree simply followed its nature; it became what it naturally would become: useless from one perspective but still valuable in the eyes of others.