That Thing Which Really Is Genuine

Think of camouflage
The chameleon who changes his color
Think of the butterfly pretending it has eyes
Think of the flower, saying to the bee, "Like my honey?"
The bee says, "Wow!"
But then that means that the bee has to be
It has to go on living
And all the trouble it takes to go around collecting honey
And raising other bees, and organizing itself
And doing that dance which tells the other bees
Where there's more honey
All that stuff to do
Because the flower was deceptive
Life is a drama, and a drama is a deception
A big act
When you peel an onion
And you don't really understand the nature of an onion
You might look for the pit in the center, like any ordinary fruit has
But the onion doesn't have a center
It's all skins
So when you get right down there's nothing but a bunch of skins
You say, "Well, that was kinda disappointing."
But of course you have to understand
That the skins are the part that you eat

Well, in rather the same way, you see, you find
When you explore yourself and your motivations
You go through and through and you try to find out
That thing which really is genuine
That thing which really is genuine
Well, in rather the same way, you see, you find
When you explore yourself and your motivations
You go through and through and you try to find out
That thing which really is genuine
That thing which really is genuine

That's why, in Zen discipline
They give you kōans which require a perfectly genuine act
An act of total and absolute sincerity
And people knock themselves out trying to do this thing
But they always know that the master's gonna catch them
'Cause he reads their thought
You know that story of von Kleist
About the man who had a fight with a bear?
And the bear could read his thoughts?
So that the only way of hitting the bear was to do so not on purpose
Because the bear would know in advance
So it's the same in working with a Zen master
You have to do the genuine act not on purpose
But since you're put in a situation where it's rather formal
And you're supposed to do it on purpose
You're stuck you see?
So, you explore the onion and you go in, and in, and in
And then you find
Well, it's all a deception

Well, in rather the same way, you see, you find
When you explore yourself and your motivations
You go through and through and you try to find out
That thing which really is genuine
That thing which really is genuine
Well, in rather the same way, you see, you find
When you explore yourself and your motivations
You go through and through and you try to find out
That thing which really is genuine
That thing which really is genuine