No birth and no death
What I am at now doesn’t know that it is alive, it has no need to see itself in this way and so it doesn’t fear or doubt death either. Sometimes this is clear, sometimes it isn’t. What is clear is that this life is not a possession of mine and it cannot belong to anything else either.
Life and death are not opposites. Life isn’t straining for survival, restlessly on alert in order to preserve itself. Survival does not equal success or add value and yet life, like anything, is naturally worthy of care and respect.
Death does not destroy life. Death is not a failure, a flaw or an enemy in any sense. Life is not the good thing that is attacked or eroded by death. Up until there is death, there is only life. The appearances of life are constantly changing, old age is different to youth, and yet both are totally only life.
All this is saying that life is just life, its vital function is unimpeded at all times and in all situations. Death is just the awesome total appearance and function of death. It is not nothing and it is not to be feared or ignored either. Death also requires respect for its true nature to show.
There isn’t a person that can be found who carries around a life and who will then undergo death. This is remarkable, an ordinary everyday miracle that needs nothing but the application of respectful attention to be realized in detail.
When clarity is allowed to appear, what is being actualized is that the thought of life, is not what life is. The same goes for death. Though this is not recognized by thought, words can be used to express this. When life is based on thoughts and feelings about things, body and mind are thrown into confusion. It’s a mistake to make a base where there is none. The wisdom functioning of body-mind and the senses – manifests when the complex and ceaseless activity of a human being is harmonized. This comes together in the upright non-interference of simple trust and attention. There is no absence of thought and sensation here. In not being made into an illusory foundation, thought and sensation have assumed their true place.
A life spent binding body and mind to the illusory reality of ego-consciousness will likely manifest desperate incomprehension when confronted with its end. With weakening of the components that have habitually been used to sustain the illusion, the deception of ego-consciousness is inevitably made clear – in using life to get somewhere, acting on belief in ego only robs from the wisdom store. Not only was imagined death illusory, so too imagined life was repeatedly being misused. Being driven by imagined creations has real consequences, dreams are as real as anything else. Ignorance is at the root of seeking a substantial escape in an imagined self, a self that’s believed to be insulated from causes and conditions. The wisdom of no escape is that escape is never needed. It’s the projected self that must undergo repeated births and deaths.
To get free of the burdensome illusion of a self created existence, understand that nothing is waiting until deaths door to do so. In a moment life can be tied into knots made out of itself. In a moment life can be realized as originally, and always free, of fear, doubt, desire and the causes of despair.
If you are interested, I recommend studying Zen Master Dogen’s short chapter, ‘Shoji’ (Birth and Death).
Various translations are available, here is a link to a PDF file of one on the Dragon Bell website.
By studying, what I mean is not just, “give it a read”. I mean let it illuminate your mind and in turn you will be illuminating it. This is different to how reading is usually approached or understood. Such a piece of writing may become an excellent lifetime companion, however frequently or infrequently you literally study with the words. You will be living it if you are living zazen. Look at his last paragraph, isn’t this already within you? What more could a human wish for? Though the direct simplicity of zazen is always close at hand, this does not mean that it is easy.