Nothing Special

What is it to be special?  Being held in high or low regard?  To be unique to all others?  In Reality, what is truly the difference between wealthy or poor; respected or ignored; sacred or mundane, wise or lame of mind?

All of the above are relative.  What I mean is that you can't have one without the other.  And why do these opposites exist?  Ego.  The sense of self, the idea of disconnection from the All. It is only applying form to that which in truth is actually formless or empty.

Too often we get caught up in the ideas and beliefs of what is right vs wrong, beautiful vs ugly, dark vs light, etc. But Buddhism and Zen is about seeing things for what they are before these ideas, or what we could even call labels.  Absolute Reality doesn't depend on opposites/relativity/opinions.  The universe will inevitably continue to unfold itself regardless of what happens or what we may hold as valuable.  As sobering as it may be, the earth will continue to spin after encounter the end of you life, and people will forget about you time to time.

One of the purposes of Zen is to live in the moment and approach each moment to it's fullest and deepest meaning.  A homeless person can penetrate this moment just as well as a billionaire. A plastic representation of a "holy" figure can have just as much value as one made of gold. It is never about who or what you are, but how you approach life in its completeness in this moment.  Just to be awakened is the point.  To see through the delusion of thought that opposites exist in the mind but not in Reality.

In conclusion nothing is ugly or beautiful, good or evil, sacred or mundane, light or dark, etc.  These are all ideas (delusion) which conflict with true reality.  Nothing is special or lame, everything just is.