When I began my exploration in Zen I was 25. I had discovered Buddhism while in Japan some 5 years earlier, but the sect in which I had enlisted did not reveal to me the core of my Self. My search continued and I looked into every system I could find, looking for the essence of my Being.
It was the Koan exercise and the insistence of Enlightenment in Zen that finally struck a chord.
I am now 75. In my early survey of Taoist and Zen literature, for all its charm, there were anecdotes that mystified me. Lao Tsu: why did he leave the kingdom to live out the rest of his life in obscurity amongst the barbarians? Would not his enlightenment have been of great value in his homeland? He knocked out the "Tao Te Ching" at the request of the gate keeper on his way out, never to be heard from again. And the Zen masters who came to live under bridges or to dwell in some rustic hideout. Would not their presence in community have been of great value?
Well, now I understand the why of all that just plain as day.
