Holding On

With palms together,
Good Morning All,

We only see things as coming or going when we live as if we are the reference point. Zen practice enables us to realize this is not always so and, in fact, there is no reference point. With no self as a point of reference we are free. At that moment, coming and going cease, as do up and down, and most importantly, birth and death.

Our brain produces the ability to link things and events together. Yet in truth, things and events are not linked. They are discreet moments unto themselves. It is only our mind that puts them together as a pattern. While patterns can be delightful and meaningful in the everyday world of relative existence, they are illusions of our mind and should only be understood as mental tools. If we understand them to be truth, we are lost.

To be lost means to not be able to live directly as each thing presents itself. When we live in a pattern we are living in mental connection and so cannot appreciate things as it is; thusness.

So challenging for us as ordinary people. But when we practice zazen, we are not ordinary and we begin to see clearly perhaps for the first time. This is the frightening aspect of zazen. It demands that we let go of the post that holds us tethered. As we practice we begin to see the post, the tether, and that which is tethered as illusion, and not entirely there yet, we become frightened.

What will happen to me if I let go?


Be well.