Shundo David Haye

‘I know that my life here, as an individual entity, is not accidental. We can understand that without our parents and endless parents before us, our lives would not be here, but when we go into our own biological presence, and then go way, way back, it gets too complicated, so we don’t try to know it. One life is like a little spring plum blossom, blooming on an aged, aged plum tree. The tree has moss all over it and you are blooming at the tip of a little green new branch. So you look around, in this stage of life, and notice we all look alike. Whether man or woman doesn’t matter. There are two eyes, something sitting in the middle of the face, and each body, from a young baby to an aged person about to step into the coffin, all look quite similar. Remembering how your life has continued from the very far past up to today’s life here, is too profound, too miraculous. You don’t want to think about it.

Thinking about the future, where you might be, where you might live, is even more impossible.’ (Kobun Chino)