Shobogenzo Shoji 3: Fearless in the Fear of Death, and/or Life.

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Shobogenzo Shoji continues to examine the Great Matter of our life and death... 

 

To understand that we move from birth to death is a mistake.

 

Our conventional view of time is that we move in a line from past into present into future, based on our thinking/imagining. The view of Buddhist practice, of zazen, is different though: when we have stopped the mental activity of remembering a past, thinking about the present, and imagining a future then what happens to time? The implied linear nature of it doesn't hold up. The sense that there is a self that exists on this imaginary timeline from a remembered past through to a dimly imagined death doesn't seem so fixed and certain at all.

 

Birth is a state at one moment; it already has a past and will have a future. For this reason, it is said in the Buddha-Dharma that appearance is just non-appearance.  Extinction also is a state at one moment; it too has a past and a future. This is why it is said that disappearance is just non-disappearance.


From the point of view of having dropped off the mental narrative or timeline of our life in zazen, both birth and death can be experienced as real ongoing situations in a sort of open, eternal, spontaneous present moment. These moments have a real past and future, but they are not what we imagine - they are completely free of our remembering, thinking about, and imagining them. They are completely free of what we are inclined to think or imagine ourselves to be.

 

In the time called life, there is nothing besides life. In the time called death, there is nothing besides death. Thus, when life comes it is just life, and when death comes it is just death; do not say, confronting them, that you will serve them, and do not wish for them. 


Life and death experienced directly like this are just what they are free of our thinking, and free of any implied 'me' or 'self'. Nishijima/Cross in their footnotes say that 'not serving' them has the sense of 'not being a slave' to either life or death, so not being overly concerned with them nor yearning for them. Just meeting each moment head-on as it is: if there's fear as life or death meeting it head-on as it is; and if there's joy as life or death meeting it head on as it is; and if there's doubt or despair as life or death meeting it head on as it is... without the mental 'me' narrative and timeline of a person who we think was born and who we imagine will die.

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