Outside is Inside

One day as Manjusri stood outside the gate, the Buddha called to him, “Manjusri, Manjusri, why do you not enter?”

Manjusri replied, “I do not see myself as outside. Why enter?”

- Zen Koan

Let's be honest, we are westerners. Even if we abandoned everything and trained nearly every waking hour of our lives, we would never be considered more than westerners. We could never actually learn Kung Fu.

But regardless of what others think, where is your mind? Are you outside the gate? As ridiculous as it is, I have always imagined myself as a Shaolin monk every time I've trained. I know I will never even be a fraction of a fraction of a Shaolin Monk, but I put myself in that mindset. Like the Koan, I am within the gate, so why enter?