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"Who am I?" "Where am I from?" "Where am I going?" These are essential questions for most of us. Whatever our religion, these questions will pursue us, and all the more urgently as we get older. In Zen Buddhism, what we call "life" and "death" are temporary manifestations of our True Nature. The same is true of "health" and "sickness." We cannot ignore life and death, health and sickness, as they seem so real. But there is another reality, even prior to heaven and earth, which I call Light Being. That reality will never be extinguished.
Many of us believe that what we call "me" is a small corporeal body, a self that disintegrates with our death. Others understand that when we die, the self is somehow absorbed into an eternal, boundless self. What if, mysteriously enough, the egoistic self and the Boundless Self exist simultaneously as one? Is this possible? Yes, it is.
"We must study that in the entire universe there are myriad forms and hundreds of blades of grass and that each of these forms and each blade of grass are, one by one, the entire universe. With this lively view our practice begins." From Being-Time by Dogen Kigen Zenji.
Language can only describe this condition, but Zen urges us to realize This - our True Nature - using this corporeal body and mind. First, learn how to do sitting zazen: erect your body, loosen your diaphragm, breathe from your lower abdomen, and look at yourself. Then, carry that sitting zazen into active zazen: pay attention, think profoundly, be generous with your time, your energy, and your ability to benefit others. Rest for a short while, and reactivate sitting zazen. Be patient and diligent. With the readiness of time, it becomes clear - inevitably.
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