Zazen And The Forgetting Of Self
:
THE TRAINING OF THE MIND AND THE PRACTICE OF MEDITATION
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.