If babel fish existed or I could have access to a fluid translator, then perhaps Drukpa Kunley, (or, alternatively, Hanshan or Ikkyu,) because I would like to know how that level of freedom is achieved (and whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be.)
If I was on my own for language, maybe Thoreau or Whitman. (For largely the same reason.)
I'm happy to be a free Yogi,
growing evermore into inner happiness.
I can have sex with many women
as it helps them find the path of liberation.
Outwardly I'm a fool
and inwardly I live a clear spiritual path.
Outwardly I enjoy wine and women
and inwardly I work for the benefit of all beings.
Outwardly I live for my pleasure
and inwardly I do everything in the right moment.
Outwardly I'm a ragged beggar
and inwardly a blissful Buddha.
What’s the biggest risk you’d like to take — but haven’t been able to?
Fully embrace the crazy, in the manner of Diogenes, Blake, or Drukpa Kunley.
What profession do you admire most and why?
I most admire Mad Saints / Crazy Sages because it requires great courage to show a path of thwarting convention, and it demonstrates a level of freedom and self-realization unseen, elsewhere.
Furthermore, unlike the other major contenders, there is no bad motive for entering the field. So, if you want to talk on the whole. Many doctors chased pitiful motives like money, prestige, or simply doing what their parents told them to — unquestioningly. Some teachers became teachers based on the June through August dead time or the love of the power to make kids eat their meat by withholding the pudding. But all crazy sages became so because someone needs to point out the world outside the cave, and they had no capacity to do otherwise.
Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu by Ikkyu
Sitting naked beside the road, stripped of all I'd once owned. I see a flower stare at me, and recall being stoned. The painful thumps upon my flesh, the cracks internal heard, the racing breath, the anxious feel as my sight slowly blurred. What crime is madness, I wonder? What is it to be free? A slap to faces of all those tied to the old birch tree?
“I desire that there may be as many different persons in the world as possible”
Henry david thoreau, Walden
Too many people wish that the world consisted of those who held the same views as they - who loved what they loved, who believed what they believed, who would do what they would do. I can't imagine a more boring world than that. If there aren't those with different: ideas, desires, beliefs, and values, then who will show me something new: something that -- for good or for ill -- will change my world and advance my understanding. If truth be told, I'd just as soon spend time among the crazy sages who -- having rejected all programming -- will not be made prisoner to a train schedule, let alone to a norm or convention or protocol. The madmen who shaman one out of all mental conventions. But such as they are hand forged, each vibrating at his or her own wavelength -- hard to see and not easily found.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 