Dear Ones,
This week is Chapter 5, "Who Is This Person?" ... The Person In The Hut Lives Here Calmly ...
I have a little peccadillo in my writing, when expressing a taste of Emptiness, Wholeness, Non-Self, of switching pronouns from "me, you, she" to "one" and such ...
One gets very far, one finally arrives ... by one's sitting still.
Chinese and Japanese are lovely for much Zen writing, as the personal pronoun is not always needed, and one just knows from context ("I'm Sitting Zazen" in Japanese is often expressed as simply "Sitting Zazen", with the actor implied from context or very subtly not needed).
Here is an experiment that I would like everyone to try for a day or as much of a day as one can: In one's thoughts, replace "I" and "me" as much as possible with "One" or with no personal pronoun at all ... for example, "I am hungry" would become "One is hungry" or "am hungry". "I am going to work" would become "One is going to work" or just "Going to work". "My hair" is now "One's hair" or just "hair". Do this, as much as one can, with all one's thoughts, and report back here whether it softens up the sense of a fixed personal self a bit.
It is just a crazy experiment, but I want to see ... I mean, "One wants to see" ... what happens for every"one".
Gassho, J
