In one Emptiness the two are not distinguished.
— Sosan Ganchi Zenji, On Believing in Mind
And each contains in itself all the ten thousand things; when no discrimination is made between this and that, how can a one-sided and prejudiced view arise?
The other day I was talking to a friend about the tension between purifying our hearts and embracing the sloppiness of the soul. Since I have been eating lots of hard boiled eggs lately, this image of the yolk as the soul and spirit as the egg white came to mind as a way of imagining how spirit and soul work together in self -transformation. And it was at HEB when I was buying eggs that a woman reached for the carton of egg beaters with the yolks removed.
I thought , ” Hhmmm, eggs with no soul, interesting. “
My zen teacher and Abbot of Dai Bosatsu Zendo, Shinge Roshi, frequently talked about the importance of returning to this one Emptiness in our zazen practice and in life. The focus was not on attaining kensho, or enlightenment, but simply returning to our breath during zazen, returning to the cushion daily to sit, returning to our true nature when we find ourselves caught up in circumstance, reactivity, ego or feelings of despair.
Abstractions about soul, spirit, purification, and ecstatic spiritualism, are integral to religious teaching and in helping us to get over ourselves. But in zazen this is no place to linger. When we think we know the answer, and we are aware of the potential pitfalls here {as in the eggs without soul}, returning to one Emptiness can be a safe refuge.
Always returning, always returning.
Her deeply sincere words
Directed to the heart of her being:
“ I am sorry” , “ It’s Okay It’s Okay”
Returning, returning
We forget and we return
We screw up and we return
Return to one Emptiness.