The Nature of Existence

Everything is a manifestation of sacredness, everything has value. And the nature of most religions is that someone initially has realized this, whether it's Islam, Buddhism, Christianity. Someone's seen into this, that everything is sacred and then they use a word to describe it, like God, Buddha Nature, Tathagatha, the Dao or in Japanese Henry. Sort of like a word to describe that which can't be described in words. So what do we all do? We worship the word God, Buddha, and then what human beings do? We write is sacred text so that the text becomes sacred and then we create artwork like Buddhism and Christ and various icons and so on, we all go around and worship them, they become sacred, right? The churches has become sacred, the temples become sacred but what the original insight was is, everything is sacred.

Now, all our religions are pointing towards something about the nature of existence, whatever you call it. The fact that we are here, that there is something rather than nothing and that there is life rather than no life, is extraordinary. Extraordinary, beyond our comprehension, but we miss it. It's like we just don't see it in front of our eyes. We're searching for something else when it's there all the time. 

I'm not saying zen is any better than any other religion. Like anything else, it can be something that blinds us rather than opens our eyes to what is sacred all around us. I suppose one of the things I practice and I teach it, is that I think doing meditation and being silent and being receptive to what is, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, and being embodied, is a wonderful ways of recognizing the sacredness in everything.

The Sacred Forms of Tathagatha's Never Failing Essence, talk by Geoff Dawson, October 24, 2022, Ordinary Mind School of Sydney