People’s minds aren’t all the same
Any more than people’s faces
Everyone clings to his own point of view
Incessantly arguing over right and wrong
“If you think like me, you’re right
even if you’re wrong”
“If you don’t think like me, you’re wrong
even if you’re right.”
Whatever is right to you is right
Can’t you see that’s wrong?
From the start, right and wrong finds a home in you
But the Way itself isn’t like this at all
Only a fool would attempt
To fathom the ocean so clumsily.
Ryokan
Hermit Monk , Calligrapher, Poet and Zen Master (1758-1831)
Letting go of polarized opposites such as good and bad, right and wrong, gives way to a magical yet very ordinary experience that is founded in tranquility and a calm, poised centeredness. No longer tethered by situations, conditions, judgments, and opinions, this state of clarity and efficiency starts to find it’s way into all of our life experience.
Dogen Zenji said “To study the way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, to forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. To wander towards things is illusion. However, when things come to us, as we are, that is enlightenment.”
If you are going to pursue this path, you cannot settle for a conceptual experience. With a strong center, we live our daily life without being moved around by events. Truth and your life have to merge.
Ji Haeng Zen Master – Desert Dragon