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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/41002
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Philosophy and religion can be beautiful. Khalil Gibran uses strong imagery and beautiful turns of phrase in his Prophet series and the whole thing is a series of conversations. Plato’s Dialogues are a thing of beauty and a joy to read.

Remember, it is a conversation. Your character can misunderstand and need to rephrase things. Buddhism is complex and nuanced and quite different from what she probably accepted as her personal philosophy. The idea that this Master has chosen to postpone enlightenment so he can teach will probably puzzle her.

I was thinking more of Mahayana Buddhism than Zen. My character, were I to write one, would be a warm person who knows that there is no difference between the woman sitting at his feet and him but the illusion of self. He would use humour to illustrate his points and let her find her true path.

The idea of self, so strong in Western philosophy, is absent here and this will be the hardest thing for her to grasp. She is on a journey to improve her self and meets a man who tells her all is illusion and fallacy. Her pain and sorrow all illusions and she and her ex husband are one since all are one. She won’t like what she hears, won’t understand much either at first.

Let it grow and flow using the personality of both master and student to influence its path. Questions that seem bizarre can be a part of it. The impossibility of crossing the same river twice comes to mind.

Original score: 2