Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘In what way do we realize and awaken to the Buddha’s mind? Everything in nature has a physical body, yet a rock doesn’t call itself a rock, or a flower call itself a flower. Only humans are stuck on how they are or should be. The most healthy way of being is to have no need to explain our being, but for it to manifest naturally. We get stuck because we feel a need to explain. We express many forms, but do we say when we are working, “Now I am working”? We don’t need such an explanation. While having a body, we must not get caught on the fact that we have a body. This is the essence of zazen: in everything to become what we are doing completely and totally. We live completely, and then we die completely. We don’t set our lives aside because of a fear of death; instead, we live wholeheartedly with every bit of our being. A dead person doesn’t say, “Now, I am dead.”‘ (Not One Single Thing)