essay by genpo roshi
“No matter who you are, or where you are on the globe, when you go to the sea and scoop up a handful of seawater, it will taste the same.”
What would you say if someone asked, “Do you exist?” Most of us would answer immediately, “Of course!” We take this so-called I for granted. But do you really exist? It’s a good question. The only problem is, we turn the question into a problem. First, we are stuck, deluded: we assume that we are what we think we are and that we exist in the way we think we exist. Then, we begin to question: “Is it so? Is there something more, something to be realized?” Somewhere along the way, we hear or read, “Yes! There is something to be realized, something to be tasted.” What does the mind do next? The small mind wants to figure out exactly what was experienced, precisely what was realized. Before we know it, we’ve started on a journey to the Sea. If we could have just one taste, then we could relax, right? No! The small mind is insatiable: we always want more, a bigger and better taste. One doughnut is never enough, we want the whole doughnut shop! Our grasping mind keeps us in the loop, always seeking more. Nobody is doing this to me, and nobody is doing this to you. We do it to ourselves.
Zen practice put our grasping mind to work. We have an itch, so we’re encouraged to right ahead and scratch. Don’t you really want to know, to finally discover and grasp the Truth? Tempting, isn’t it? Paradoxically, we have to try and we have to search, in order to discover that it can’t be grasped. Simply hearing about the experience is never enough. We have to go to the Sea, scoop up the water, and taste it for ourselves. So in Zen, we are encouraged to take the journey. We use fire to burn down the fuel and put out the fire.
Zen practice gives us a framework in which to do what is absolutely insane to do in the first place. I’m not talking about becoming even more insane, but admitting our insanity and becoming more sane in the process. All of us ask impossible questions: Am I a good person or a bad person? Is my life a success? Am I on the right path? Zen says: Go for it! Burn it out!