the secrets act

The Zen teacher Ummon was once quoted as saying, "When you can't say it, it's there. When you don't say it, it's missing."

Not much out of the ordinary there, but it does make me wonder about all the bright spiritual teachers who husband a hundred secrets as a means of "spreading the Dharma" or nourishing an institution or putting food on their tables ... husband so many secrets that the secrets enfold and throttle them with a virtuous lifestyle that makes no room for and gives no quarter to the very real secret they cannot tell.

Sure, they can bow and scrape, but any asshole can do that.

What a pitiful vortex.