listen to THIS nonsense:

Ryokan, a Japanese Zen poet of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, wrote this simple poem.

Maple leaf

Falling down

Showing front

Showing back

The action of a maple leaf falling down, showing front, showing back - the way it falls from the tree, when it falls from the tree, how it falls from the tree, where it lands - all of this exemplifies right action. How different this kind of action is from the kinds of willed, goal-oriented action we're so familiar with!

Imagine a maple leaf that says in midsummer, "I'm checkin' out. I'm gettin' off this tree." And there it goes, tumbling down while still green. Or imagine the leaf that just won't let go. It hangs on all winter, not willing to move or change, until next year's bud gives it the boot. Then there's the leaf that doesn't want to be 'just a leaf in the wind.' When it falls from the branch, it curls up and does a cannonball to the ground.

What kind of pattern would these leaves make on the ground? It would be quite different from the (beautifully perfect/perfectly beautiful) one described by Ryokan.

Leaves, of course, have no motives. We human beings, however, operate in all three of these ways on quite a regular basis. In attempting to exert control over people, things, and events, we run away, hang on tightly, or thumb our noses and do what we please.

The action of Ryokan's slowly drifting maple leaf - natural, unwilled - demonstrates right action. The actions of the other leaves, which I've illustrated in a silly way, are willed. The two types of actions lead to quite different results.