i am the love child of marilyn monroe, zhaozhou and crazy horse koan

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Maybe a famous Zen koan will help. We're talking maybe the most high-minded Zen masters in history, here, and they had a whole monastery full of sincere students. Mandatory though it may be, sincerity also turns out to be the biggest stumbling block to enlightenment, so...

From Thomas Cleary's translation of the Wumenguan:

Because the monks of the eastern and western halls were fighting over a cat, Master Nanchuan picked it up, and said, "If you can speak, I'll spare the cat. If not, I'll kill it."

No one replied, so Nanchuan killed it.

That evening Zhaozhou returned from somewhere else and Nanchuan told him what had happened. Zhaozhou then took off his sandals, put them on his head, and walked out.

Nanchuan said, "Had you been there, you could have saved the cat."

From the translator's comments:

Zhaozhou's farcical act silently remarks that to be enslaved by something that originally was supposed to foster liberation is like being worn by a pair of shoes instead of wearing them.

Nanchuan says that Zhaozhou would have saved the cat, because this is the very point he was trying to make to the disputatious monks: Ride the vehicle, don't be ridden by it. To ride the vehicle of Buddhism means to transcend human greed, aggression and stupidity. To be ridden by the vehicle of Buddhism means to become pompous about piety -- when you let ordinary human desire or ambition for spirituality or enlightenment increase the burden of your self-importance.

For some reason, I've been cracked for Zhaozhou since the first time I heard of him.

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Same with Crazy Horse. For exceptionally similar reasons.

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And Marilyn... well... use your imagination!