Monday Morning Blues; Travelin' Shoes

Fred Neil • Travelin' Shoes

A few weeks ago, I travelled to Musangsa to meet Barry Briggs while he was in Korea for a visit. Musangsa is special because it is mostly inhabited and run by foreign monks who were students of Zen Master Seung Sahn's.

Something I quickly noticed was that when you haven't been to a Dharma talk in a while, the words of the monks seem as though they are being directed right at you. That's part of the magic of the universal experience, though. We're all suffer to some extent and no one's suffering is particularly unique. The basic teachings can be directed at all of us in general and each of us personally simultaneously.

One of the things Zen Master Dae Bong pointed out was the importance of setting our direction and firmly keep it. If we don't have a strong direction, he continued, someone else will control our lives for us.

This poked me rather sharply here in my current state of suffering. I have my head spinning in four directions, reluctant to choose any of them.

I've been listening to Fred Neil a lot over the past couple of weeks, and this song keeps reminding me to find a direction and walk it...