The Truth
The following lines are from "Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness"
by Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center.
- The Truth, or Source, is something beyond our consciousness,
something we cannot approach through our feeling or thought,
or even through our senses.
- It is the source of all being, including our thoughts
and whatever we can see, touch, smell, taste, or hear.
- Yet through practice (of Zazen) we may realize it.
Buddha expressed this great equality
on awakening, and realizing,
everything, and everyone, is Buddha nature.
Truth is expressed, though equalities,
in mathematical systems and physical laws,
and even in our interdependent lives.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
and they are endowed ... "
We can search for, discover, and appreciate many aspects of Truth,
such as geometric shapes, mathematical theorems, laws of physics,
and even traces of Gods or Buddhas.
Our thoughts, ideas, and perceptions, and even our emotions, actualize Truth.
When we, and even our universe, have become the distant past, Truth will not have changed.
Yet we can discover much of the Truth.
Back to Why to Meditate
Back to Mind and Meditation