Zen as Embodiment (4) - i am you and we are they
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We undertake Bodhisattva Vows to "save all sentient beings, though beings numberless." It seems an impossible task.
And yet, every instant of our own zazen saves all sentient beings, immediately and to the very last one. How?
A single zazen sitting embodies all people, places and things, every creature near or far, each moment and all timeless time, all else which is nothing else held within this sitting, and our sitting just all of that. Nothing is left out, all is embodied in wholeness, whereby i am you and we are they and all of them.
I am thusness, and you are thusness, and they are thusness ... and thusness is thusness ... so this sitting thusness is all thusness.
And so, our own saving of ourself on the zazen cushion saves all people, places, things, creatures, grasses and galaxies, here and there and all the rest. What happens to us happens to all.
And we save ourself and save all the rest in the realization, embodied in zazen, that there never were separate people, places, things, creatures, no separate any of it ... no separate ourself too ... from the startless-start, thus nobody and no thing to save, nor any lack in the wholeness, no coming or going, thus no danger or death or deprivation to be saved from. It is true, and nothing ever in need of doing, nobody to do it, nobody to do it to, this job already done.
Yet Zen folks do not know reality in only one way, thus there is still much work of rescue to do, and the job is far from done. Why?
Because, while there are no people, places, things, creatures and all the rest ... there certainly are! And the sentient ones among the people and creatures do not know this fact that the job is done, are lost in a world of separation, gain and lack, birth and death ... so it's our job to show em.
Thus our work is to guide the sentient beings to know, as we know, that there is no sentient being, no death, no lack ... even as we all continue living in this world of sentient beings, creatures, things, places, time, death and lack. A Bodhisattva's Compassion is to open such Wisdom to all those suffering in the ignorance of division and lack.
Thus our task is to save the sentient beings, although no beings to save ... because there are still beings to save ... all by experiencing this fact that there are-not-are beings-no-beings to save-without saving.
But that is not all ... because while there is nothing lacking, no death (no birth either), no sickness nor body to be sick ... yet there are still hungry children in this world, those dying or knowing grief at another's death, fear, diseases and poverty. This is yet another truth which Zen folks simultaneously know.
In the gentle Compassion realized in zazen, we personally empathize with all the hungry stomachs, broken hearts, scared children and ailing bodies of this world for i am you and we are but they.
Therefore rising up from the cushion, though there are no sentient beings, no children, no hunger and all the rest ... yet there are ... so let us feed the hungry, nurse the dying, befriend the grieving, comfort the frightened children, cure the disease, end the war, and raise the poor out of poverty.
A timeless moment of zazen embodies all of this, at once, as one, in each inch of our sitting and in each moment of our acting.
