Koan #7...

By Vichara

If it’s Monday you know it’s time for this week’s Koan – “I burn the books in my bag. But the verses written in my guts cannot be forgotten”. There are many of us, myself included that have over the years come across the writings of others, that given whatever circumstances we were at struck a chord. While however useful and quotable these words can be to us these will always be their words. Forget the words and use the chords that have been struck, fold it into your life to further establish and develop your intuitive nature. The old Zen master, Ikkyu, burned his copies of the Buddhist scriptures and believed we should learn to read the love letters sent by the snow, the wind and the rain. He believed in following the dictates of his intuition. This may not be an easy task for some as we all can be easily influenced in some ways but the development of your intuition is vital. Question what you see, read and hear and take the time to develop your own voice and your own intuitive nature.

expatiate • \ek-SPAY-shee-ayt\ • verb
1 : to move about freely or at will : wander
2 : to speak or write at length or in detail

Example Sentence:
The middle schoolers grew restless as Mr. Donald expatiated on Pluto's classification as a dwarf planet.

Did you know?
The Latin antecedent of "expatiate" is "exspatiari," which combines the prefix "ex-" ("out of") with "spatiari" ("to take a walk"), itself from "spatium" ("space" or "course"). "Exspatiari" means "to wander from a course" and, in the figurative sense, "to digress." But when English speakers began using "expatiate" in 1538, we took "wander" as simply "to move about freely." In a similar digression from the original Latin, we began using "expatiate" in a figurative sense of "to speak at length." That's the sense of the word most often used these days, usually in combination with "on" or "upon.