A few closing remarks for the sesshin.
Yesterday we were talking about how the advantages of abiding in the Unborn came with a price. To abide in the Unborn is to abide in your own irrelevance. To abide in the Unborn is to abide without control, to relenquish control.
Today I would like to bring this down more to a feeling level. Zen is not an intellectual exercise. What does it feel like abide in the Unborn?
To abide in the Unborn is at once what is most devastating and most wonderful.
Here devastation and wonderfulness go hand-in-hand. The devastation of the personal self, goes hand-in-hand with, reveals, the Self of impersonal presence, the Unborn.
Don’t underestimate this devastation. This is the devastation of all of your hopes and dreams. This is the devastation of what you think of as you, the personal self. To abide in the Unborn is to abide in this devastation.
On the other hand, don’t underestimate this wonderfulness! Suppose you have lived your whole life under heavily overcast skies. You find this practice, Zen practice, and you do it for a few years, for many years, and, as a result, the clouds begin to clear up more-and-more. You feel this joy, happiness, and you don’t even know why. Then one day, a sliver of the sun pokes out behind the clouds. Imagine what this would be like, to see the sun for the first time ever.
To continue the metaphor, the work of Zen is to clear up those clouds, until the full sun shines forth in your life.
Sam Gabriel, San Diego, CA
http://home.roadrunner.com/~clothespin
sam_gabriel@yahoo.com