I like people that are pains in the ass. Too much ass around here and not enough pain.

Ok, so I'll bite: Einstein was wrong about relativity? Sure. Ok. Of course he was wrong, words and numbers can't express reality, but between him -- Reimann and Oppenheimer (and a few others) they sure did figure out how to blow shit up out in the desert. Einstein understood something about relativity.

Give it time.

That's all I have, friend. Of course, the ego over here would sure enjoy . . .wait a moment. I was about to say "the ego over here would sure like to pass through the gateless gate in this life time", but that's not true is it? The ego cannot pass through the gateless gate. The ego wants to stay here typing stuff, because to keep expressing is to stay on this side of the gateless gate. TO REMAIN AN EGO. Nothing to be ashamed of, survival instinct. What a tricky little game this is.

hmmm, I'm vexed. Stumped. I quoted the final lines of the HSIN-HSIN MING to you earlier in another thread but it seems more appropriate here:

Words! Words! The way is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday no tomorrow no today.

I can't meditate my way there. I can't think my way there. I can't NOT THINK my way there. To say there is a "there" there is not going to help, but it does deconstruct some scaffolding of language. No way to do it! Can't fake it till I make it either!

/u/ewk, this might be a long ways coming, but what can be done in the appraisal of zen? I do not delude myself that my intentions are pure. I am an ego, hear me roar! haha. But that gets old. There is more, so much more.

I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I'd give my life for the complexity on the other side. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Will zen distill within u/johnlouisjones? Will it distill within /u/ewk?

What function does a human that has passed through the gateless gate have in this world?