Dragons Roar and Cranes Whoop Introduction Religious beliefs are many. Some people believe in heaven. Others believe in reincarnation. Some believe there’s only one God,
We are constantly judging and comparing ourselves with our previous self, the self we want to become, or the selves of other people, wanting to become something other than what we are today. However, Enlightenment in the Soto school is impossible to attain by self-improvement. While practice never precludes continual refinement of our actions and following the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts, it’s about accepting where and who we are in this moment, because in the next moment the strong winds of life change us, just as the cloud transforms into a different shape, second after second. Like the cloud, it is not us (=ego self) that changes ourselves, but life that transforms us.
What if we were to accept that our view of the world is almost always concealed, limited, and incomplete? What if we were to accept that what we are seeing is never the full picture?
The Genuine Ancestors Monk bowing to tree. By Daishin Sitting at the edge of a small, sparsely wooded area on my college campus, the trees
