This section is written for New Age Dharma Gladiators, in the perhaps vain hope that they will recognize themselves before it is too late. Their armor is bright and flashy, for it is made up of the most impressive words of disciplines that are removed from one another. Their self-image arises from the mistaken idea that they can synthesize all wisdom and turn it into their own unique wisdom. They project a strength and a false modesty and though they believe themselves wise and sensitive, their creativity is more similar to a watchmaker's product than that of wordless young child.
There they are in the centre of the arena, saluting bravely, declaring, "We who are about to know all Truth salute thee". Who are they saluting? They are saluting the little Caesar within themselves.
They must learn like the ancients to cut off entirely the most minimal obstruction that they now flaunt as a virtue. They cannot compare themselves even to a potential sage for, as Yuan-wu declares,
"They drag each other through the weeds, draw each other into assesments and judgments of words and deeds, make nests, and bury the sons and daughters of others."
Yuan-wu named them clearly saying that they are "wetting the bed with their eyes open."
Thus while they appear to be Warrior sages they are just Gladiators who will eventually drown in their own urine.
They do not recognize their own deep folly. Certainly they recognize the unimportant things, for that is their armor of apparent righteousness and humility, but they fail to know the inner secrets. They are masters of words and they repeat like parrots the words of true teachers and while listening they view their own image and they mystify others with the brilliance of their pseudo-penetration.
Every day there are more authoritative Dharma texts out there and the number of New Age Dharma Gladiators, who believe that they are on the path because they intuit that they know more or less the nature of what is hidden, keeps increasing.
That personal certainty is the guarantee that they are not even close to liberation, for it places them immediaely in the bog of Samsara. These Dharma Gladiators speak with honey tones and they are intelligent. They know the ideas and point to them as if they knew that hidden mystery.
Each has his favorite weapon -creativity, penetrating criticism, glibness and a thousand other arms- but they never show their weakness, which is Dharma Desire.
They believe that they are Dharma Warriors but they are just Gladiators, slaves to Samsara, wanting to be free perhaps, but proud to be there in the arena where they can be seen and applauded.
IN CONSTRUCTION
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