Dear Ghetto Shaman,

Enlightenment seems such a mystery to me. The ego must be strong before it is destroyed? Striving for enlightenment is a barrier to enlightenment itself? There are so many ‘sound of one hand clapping’ type paradoxes that the main point keeps eluding me.

Dedra Farley

Tempe, AZ

Dear Dedra,

Very true, Dedra. At the heart of Zen are confounding paradoxes designed to help focus the mind. For example, to the untrained eye, even I myself may appear like an addicted amoral opportunistic, criminal-minded type, but in actuality, er……all right, bad example.

The Ghetto Shaman