I asked the boy beneath the pines.

He said, “The Master’s gone alone

Herb-picking somewhere on the mount,

Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.”

—Chia Tao, “Searching for the Hermit in Vain”

to try to find it is going in the wrong direction. it was always there, right under your nose. this knowing what to do, where to go and what to say. we each have it in our lives, a direction we should go, a choice that was to be made. unfortunately we get caught up in the ego, in society, in our wishes to appease or obtain something that was never meant to be ours. it makes for an uncomfortable setting, it causes us all to astray, all to try a different direction to obtain something else.

on the other hand, with the myriad of choices at our disposal how is one to know where to go? what do you do when the flow heads towards the rapids. perhaps we go in search of answers. we ask our friends, ourselves, hoping to hear the what we want to hear. helping to reinforce our urges, to comfort ourselves for what we have, where we are.

so we go up the mountain and into the pines, only to find an empty field, life passing by. so it is, to be human. to wrestle with what we are and what we are supposed to be. all the time knowing that the end is coming. all of our hopes and dreams taken away, all our stuff left to rot. sans teeth, sans everything. with the fun in the chase, in the questioning and in the climb all along.