Question
I met a very unhappy man. His history is very troubled. He
practices zazen, but he is a thief. Are those compatible? He carries
a great deal of violence, but always returns to me. I am a little
light in his difficult life, but for me it is very heavy. I want to
flee him, yet the more I resist, the more I return to him, especially since he seems very
dependent on me. I do not believe in his love, because there seems
too much dependence. And is my affection for him genuine? All this
torments me. When he is not there, I think about it, but tell myself these are
illusions. The problem is his heavy, threatening presence… I am not
able to give to him, because I too need someone to give to me.
It is as though we were trapped in a spiral of emotional dependence
without real trust. Can I trust?
Anonymous
Answer from Master Kosen
That is exactly it: dependence. That is precisely what you must not trust.
Whatever its object, you must never trust your dependence. It is humanity’s biggest problem and greatest illusion, and it is what spoils our world.
Kosen