Discovering You Are

I developed a book in the mid 1980s, the ZEN SPIRIT BOOK.

This book is required reading in the Shaolin Chi Mantis Programs because it breaks down character and ambition and love with many pages of questions.

Then from the questions, I developed a system of pulling keywords out to reconstruct the individual. Now there are computers with questionnaires that process your answers and somehow figure you out.

They probably work really well, however, each person I've taught has revealed themselves more from the working than the receiving of the information. The ZEN SPIRIT BOOK requires the student to analyze their information and form it into something meaningful for them.

My questions and discussions of the answers probably helped also. So, if you can't talk to me, talk to someone else. Rather than pay a psychologist to listen to you, talk to a friend for free.

Be careful though. You'll probably learn more from listening to your own voice, than you will from what your friends say. Unfortunately, most people are not good parents. And a person that is not a good parent, is probably not good for advice.

So, discover who you are by talking about yourself, listening to what you say, and playing it back in your memory later. Listen to the tone of your voice. Listen to the cadence and the pauses.

Before you can act you must know what you are imitating. If you don't know who you are, you won't be able imitate yourself. If you can't imitate yourself...

Buddha Zhen
Patriarch, shaolinZEN.org