‘You could say when there is this—you, the personal you— there is that; this is karma. This is cause and effect. You are thinking you know who you are, but in the Buddhadharma you are not who you think you are. This is the saving grace.
So again, when this—the I am—appears, that appears, so we have the subject and the object—the duality which creates the world of suffering.
In meditation, when there is not this, there is not that. It means that nothing disappears, nothing is disappearing. But when I am not who I think I am, then those things, those objects outside of me, are not what they seem to be. We’ve become very attached and fixed on those objects, we’ve begun comparing, we’ve begun liking. We can like or dislike, but all this causes karma.
Finally, when there is no longer this—no Roshi, not even Bill [chuckles]—when there’s no longer this there’s no longer that. We see the same world but in a completely different way. We’re free from that suffering.’ (from the Sonoma Mountain Zen Center newsletter)
Shundo David Haye 