Zazen And The Forgetting Of Self


Zazen is a most effectual means of destroying selfishness, the root

of all Sin, folly, vice, and evil, since it enables us to see that

every being is endowed with divine spirituality in common with men.

It is selfishness that throws dark shadows on life, just as it is not

the sun but the body that throws shadow before it. It is the

self-same selfishness that gave rise to the belief in the immortality

of soul, in spite
of its irrationality, foolishness, and

superstition. Individual self should be a poor miserable thing if it

were not essentially connected with the Universal Life. We can

always enjoy pure happiness when we are united with nature, quite

forgetful of our poor self. When you look, for example, into the

smiling face of a pretty baby, and smile with it, or listen to the

sweet melody of a songster and sing with it, you completely forget

your poor self at that enraptured moment. But your feelings of

beauty and happiness are for ever gone when you resume your self, and

begin to consider them after your own selfish ideas. To forget self

and identify it with nature is to break down its limitation and to

set it at liberty. To break down petty selfishness and extend it

into Universal Self is to unfetter and deliver it from bondage. It

therefore follows that salvation can be secured not by the

continuation of individuality in another life, but by the realization

of one's union with Universal Life, which is immortal, free,

limitless, eternal, and bliss itself. This is easily effected by

Zazen.



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