TFAMM: “I Listen to the Wind on my Soul”

[Ben]

Whoa Duden..

Fall, the changin of seasons.
Leaved droppin offl trees and wandering home to the earth.

Been near a year since I wandered away from ya folks, and set off with LaoMei on new paths.

Now, it’s time fer me to “make like a leaf” and leave the comfort of the tree. Go wanderin on my own a bit. Learn what this journey of becoming a Sage is about. LaoMei is encouraging me to seek inward and outward to absorb what I’ve observed, ya dig?

Sage, huh.. Wise?

I dunno, man..

Wisdom is just a sum of experience, much a which leads you down paths that turned bad and forced you to backtrack, right?

I won’t claim to be wise, in fact, I’m pretty much an idiot, but, man.. a total idiot CAN be the wisest one around.

You know why kings keep a jester, don’tcha?

Anyway, my duden, it’s time to start wanderin, and not all who wander are lost (as the sayin goes). Though, I kinda enjoy getting lost in it, cause I find myself there..

Did I lose ya fer a minute?

How do YOU find YOUR self?

Here’s a tool, you glorious dudes and duden.
And, of course, man, I’m gonna do it partly through telling a story:
One of the reasons I name my thoughts as “tails from a monkey mind” is that back at the temple where I trained, we called the chattering of an unquiet mind a “Monkey Mind”. I was told I had a serious trouble with my Monkey Mind, man..

There’s a legend that was told around the temple, of a monkey that got so powerful with magic, that he called himself the “Monkey King”. His magic even made him seem more like human men in that world.
..Hunh.. s’funny I never really thought about this story before..

anyways.. so this Monkey King he got powerful enough he could go up and he could challenge the Gods! An when he did, well, at first none of them could do anything about it, you know what I mean man? Cuz he was just that powerful! But, then they called in the one that I’m going to call “Most High”, and “Most High” (heh.. heh heh, what a name..) well, he set the Monkey King of challenge. He said “monkey, if you can escape my grasp then well, you can have anything you want.”
Monkey King thought “what a sucker! this is going to be easy!” and he used his magic to grow big as he could possibly be, bigger than anything around him! He thought “no way that Most High fella can keep a hold of me! I’ll get big enough to find the edge of the world and he won’t be able to say nothing about it!”
Monkey got big enough that he felt like he could see the edge of the world, and there, at the edge of it, was these four stone pillars. He went over to one of them and he relieved himself on it! Well, duden, then he shrunk back down and went over to Mr “most high” and he said “I did it! I escaped your grasp!”
“Most High” just showed Monkey his hand. He had some monkey stuff on the base of one of his fingers and he said “even at your greatest, I still can hold you within the palm of my hand.”
Monkey King, right then and there, he realized he was grounded. “Most High”, to make the Monkey King think about what he had done, he imprisoned him in stone.

Now Monkey later got out of it, and it was part of him becoming what we call enlightened, but that’s another story.

So, sometimes, to quiet our monkey, we gotta get “grounded”.

How’re we gonna do that? Well, mam, maybe by getting with the Most High..

(No, duden, I ain’t talkin about that! I’m talkin this!)

First, let’s count down on fingers, alright?

You got five fingers?

If so, good. If not, let’s count down from the five fingers of the Most High..

Wherever you are, duden, what’s five things you can see?

You lookin?

How about four things you can hear?
Hear that?

What’s three things you can feel? You feeling me, duden?

What’s two things you smell? You smell what the Hanu’s cooking up here?
How about one thing you can taste? (Don’t say “taste the rainbow”, man.. Skittles ain’t been invented yet.. not here anyways..)

Did that cut the chatter for ya?
Bring ya down ta earth?

Congratulations, duden.

Sometimes when we lose our footing, we need to find away to bring us back down to the ground.

(Especially if you’re like me, and you get to chasing after the Most High.. but that’s.. uhh.. another story..)

Anyways, I’m going walkabout. Setting off on some adventures of my own for a bit. Seeing what I can see. Seeking wisdom. Talking to fools. Speaking truth to.the powerful, maybe..

In the process, I may just find who I’m becoming.

Love to you, brothers and sisters. We’re all family anyways. All of us trying to walk a path between order and chaos till we find ourselves at home, right where are feet plant, somewhere in the bedrock of the now.

Be you, and be good to you. Cause you’re the you the great Way gave us!

Love one another (not in a conjugal way, duden! Not without consent!)

Plant out in the world, the things you wanna see grow.

An remember, yer Monkey loves ya, and I ain’t far, man. We’re all carried on the same winds..

Autumn leaves fall
And a lost Sage remembers
To journey further
Within and without

-Signed “Sheng Wu” (lost sage) written in leaves that scatter in the wind

[Author]

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