seeming for all the world

There is a rule. It is ‘Rule 62.’ It says, “Don’t take yourself too damn serious.”

There is a particular verse in Dongshan’s “Five Ranks.” It says, “Conceal your practice, function in secret, seem for all the world like a fool or an idiot…”

My first year at Salem State College, which got going as a junior in the fall of 1969, having transferred up from Cape Cod Community College, and after having made myself an academic-year-long pain in the butt for the Student Council, I was presented an award by one of the Council officers, a nice young man named Jake Darnell. This was the award – “The Wonderful Wacky Weirdo Award.”

Concealing my practice, right out in the open.