Where do we go after death? Nowhere. Life is universal. When we're born, we come from this universal life. We are all, without exception, universal. Only our brains get caught up in the notion that we are individual. We're universal whether we think so are not and reality doesn't care what we think.
As long as we are living, we eat cabbage and rice, bread and wine. Our bodies are collections of such stuff. Superficially, it seems that our bodies are separate from the rest of the world. But as a matter of fact, our bodies continuously radiate heat and moisture and absorb nutrients and light. Everything is coming and going with remarkable freedom. We are really universal. Where are we going after death? Back to universal life. That's why the Japanese refer to the recently deceased as "one who has returned to the origin." This universal life is the original self.
Chapter 8 - The Wayseeker: Section - Seven Points of Practice, page 156, Opening the Hand of Thought by Zosho Uchiyama
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We are rather like whirlpools in the river of life. In flowing forward, a river or stream may hit rocks, branches, or irregularities in the ground, causing whirlpools to spring up spontaneously here and there. Water entering one whirlpool quickly passes through and rejoins the river, eventually joining another whirlpool and moving on. Though for short periods it seems to be distinguishable as a separate event, the water in the whirlpools is just the river itself. The stability of a whirlpool is only temporary. The energy of the river of life forms living things - a human being, a cat or dog, trees and plants - then what held the whirlpool in place is itself altered, and the whirlpool is swept away, reentering the larger flow. The energy that was a particular whirlpool fades out and the water passes on, perhaps to be caught again and turned for a moment into another whirlpool.
We'd rather not think of ourselves in this way, however. We don't want to see ourselves as simply a temporary formation, a whirlpool in the river of life. The fact is, we take form for a while, then when conditions are appropriate, we fade out. There's nothing wrong with fading out; it's a natural part of the process. However we want to think that this little whirlpool that that we are isn't part of the stream. We want to see ourselves as permanent and stable. Our whole energy goes into trying to protect our supposed separateness. To protect the separateness, we set up artificial, fixed boundaries; as a consequence, we accumulate excess baggage, stuff that slips into our whirlpool and can't flow out again. So things clog up our whirlpool and the process gets messy. The stream needs to flow naturally and freely. If our particular whirlpool is all bogged down, we also impair the energy of the stream itself. It can't go anywhere. Neighboring whirlpools may get less water because of our frantic holding on. What we can best do for ourselves and for life is to keep the water in our whirlpool rushing and clear so that is just flowing in and flowing out. When it gets all clogged up, we create create troubles - mental physical, spiritual.
Whirlpools and Stagnant Waters pages 3 - 4 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck
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But when you face into it and you clearly recognize the ephemeral nature of life, that's where your real source of motivation comes from. Look into it everyday of your life. What [Dogen] says are false kinds of motivations for practicing is to do with some kind of self gain. I'm going to achieve some special experience, I'm going to be blissed out. That's a gaining of something that's missing which he thinks is a false motivation. But if you want to find the source of that motivation, it's there every moment of our life, look into that ephemeral nature.
Because the horizon (death) is so close, every moment is precious.
The Heart Sutra tells us over and over again, there's nothing to gain. But when we live like that, when we think life is having to tick the box for all these exciting, wonderful experiences we're going to have. You're kind of living in the future and you've ticked it off and you're ready for the next one, life is not really savored when we live it that way. It is life that has no bucket list... Because you're living moment to moment in the preciousness of life. You're not waiting to achieve something in the future that's going to make you happy. You're here with time. A lot of our happiness and a lot of our well-being in life is to do with our relationship to time. It's always in the background humming away there but it's never in the forefront of our mind. And as Dogen reminds us in some of his other writings, We are time. What most of us think of is we're passing through time, we have a relationship with time. Dogen reminds us, I think quite clearly, we are time. We are passing away. Things are passing away. Rapidly. Everyone knows that but the essence of practice is to have a radical acceptance of that fact.
Because you're not trying to gain something, you're open to what each moment unfolds for you in life.
Arousing the Desire for Practice, Geoff Dawson, Ordinary Mind Zen School (My transcription)
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As human beings we see life by means of a certain sensory apparatus and because people and objects seem external to us, we experience much misery. Our misery stems from the misconception that we are separate. Certainly it looks as though I am separate from other people and from all else in the phenomenal world. This misconception that we're separate creates all the difficulties of human life.
As long as we think we're separate, we're going to suffer. If we feel separate we're going to feel that we have to defend ourselves, that we have to try to be happy, that we have to find something in the world around us that's going to make us happy.
Now the truth of the matter is that we're not separate. We are all expressions or emanations of a central point - call it multi-dimensional energy. We can't picture this; the central point energy has no size, no space, no time. I'm speaking metaphorically about what can't really be spoken of in ordinary terms.
Can anything hurt us? page 75 Nothing Special by Charlotte Joko Beck
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Soothing Our Hungry Ghost by Mitchell Ratner, of the StillWater Mindfulness Practice Center, discusses Thich Nhat Hanh's The Five Touchings of the Earth and Kosho Uchiyama: This Life is One With Everything
from Opening the Hand of Thought : Approach to Zen
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