Your Original Face
Before weighing good and evil, before your parents bore you — what was your original face?
Stripped of every name, role, and judgment others gave me, what face does my original self wear?
📝Reflection
"What was your original face before your parents bore you?" This koan moves back through time to ask after the place where every name society gave us is peeled away. Whose child, from which school, what occupation, what personality — all of these are labels attached one by one after birth. Peel them all off, and what remains? All our lives we take these labels to be our very selves, so when a label shakes, our whole identity shakes. Lose a title and it feels as if the self has vanished; let our reputation sour and it feels as if our existence is denied. This koan points to something original, never once changed, beneath all those labels. It is the place that stays the same whether you succeed or fail, are praised or blamed. Merely recalling the original face once makes you less swept about by the trembling of labels.
🌱Apply It Today
When judgment or comparison shakes you today, ask briefly: "If all these labels were peeled away, does the me that remains still stand?" Feeling that place once quiets the shaking.
This verse is read as universal humanistic wisdom, not religion — no faith is promoted, and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.
