Splash!

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

In Zen we see heart, mind, and body as one, indeed, all of the universe is this body. Nice thought, a great truth, but thoughts about truth are not the experience of truth. To experience this truth we must stop behaving as if we are separate.

How does one behave as if one is not separate?

This is the point of so many Zen stories and koans. Each story, each koan, points us at something. It asks us to understand by getting into the story and in order to get into the story, we must become the story.

Yet, here we are again, how does one become the story? or the koan?

Just how does one "drop away"?

I once had an art teacher who was into empathy. She had use drawing old weird leaves. We were told to "feel the leaf," "become the leaf," and so on. I thought she was nuts. So I sat there, good student that I was, and drew the leaf. We were taught to draw by keeping our eye on the object and not on the paper and ink. Staying on the object, following its line this way and that, to the point that there was only the line: no eye, no hand, no pen, no...ahhh.

It is counter-intuitive. To let the self drop away means to practice joining non-self. To think non-thinking means to practice non-thinking. Following the lines until we attain there are no lines and no one to follow them.

Its like jumping into a pool.

Be well.