Who Can You Trust?

 
20. A Mother’s Advice JIUN, A SHINGON MASTER, was a well-known Sanskrit scholar of the Tokugawa era. When he was young he used to deliver lectures to his brother students. His mother heard about this and wrote him a letter: “Son, I do not think you became a devotee of the Buddha because you desired to turn into a walking dictionary for others. There is no end to information and commentation, glory and honor. I wish you would stop this lecture business. Shut yourself up in a little temple in a remote part of the mountain. Devote your time to meditation and in this way attain true realization.”
 
Reps,Paul; Senzaki, Nyogen. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings (p. 52). (Function). Kindle Edition.
 

 
Picture this ChatGPT rendition? Neither do I.
 
How about this “modern day” rendition?

 

 
Again, you buy in? Doesn’t turn my crank either!
 
Given the many peoples professing a positive pitch, (gotta like alliteration in writing), of their products in the great internet meverse, how d’ya distinguish that which offers a pathway to directly seeing/experiencing the unborn, sometimes referred to as the Buddha, mind and those, who churn out visions, pictures, words of bliss?
 
Easy for me, or anyone, to quote the Buddha and offer his advice:

"Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas (people). Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that, 'These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering' — then you should abandon them.”
 

Yes, the Buddha spoke dharma and although his words are used by me, they’re not definitive.
When I first spoke to Suco, an enlightened 75-year-old Vietnamese Buddhist nun, (beside immediately recognizing each other’s worth) I said to her, “Do you know, that when after crossing the Great Water, it’s useless to carry the raft on your back?” She nodded and smiled in agreement.
 
See https://www.consequences.life/blog/ for an account after a meeting a couple of weeks afterward. “Open Suco Letter”
 
Enlightenment/Self Realization is not and end. It’s the beginning of finding your birthright as a human being and growing older, yes, but also discovering a True, continuously expanding depth/breadth, in Wisdom.
 
To use a Cowboy, red-neck colloquialism, “You’ll no longer be an old fart/fartress wasting space.”  
 
Oh, crossing the Great Water represents the search for the unborn, all illuminating mind and the raft signifies Dharma. When gifted, when circumstance come together, and illumination happens, Dharma, being a vessel once used, is no longer needed when exploring new vistas but it is still useful as kindling to fire the aspirations of others.
 

If you can’t trust a Cowboy with his Hound: Who can you trust?