How Can This Date "Thing" Get To Be So Real?


Well, here I am at the 2nd Day of December. That is just a name. Just a label. Is just a story about December. A story I hold in my mind. A unique story, but a story that I share with the rest of humanity - well the majority of humanity that shares the concept of a calendar that is believed to be real. .  My narrative that I have learned. That is nothing new or mysterious unless I move into the question about it. What is it really? 
Numbers on a piece of paper on a wall. But where else is the actual reality of the calendar.  I can look outside and see frost on the grass and that tells me it is December?  No… Naturally speaking that tells me it is cold outside.  So I say this is the date.. What is?  It is not anywhere to be found except for in my concepts.  In my mind.  A idea created to help us know… what?  The date of course! And everybody else who knows about dates will agree with me that it is the 2nd Day of December right now.  But we've invented it! A concept. An idea... and we call it reality.  It doesn't exist anywhere else outside of the mind.  How could this date thing get to be so real?

In zazen, if I completely drop the idea of "date" existence continues.  If I could possibly throw it right out of my mind and forget that it ever exists, there are some people who would say that whether I know it or not, the days come and go, and that means that the days have dates and they come and go.  But to me they have been forgotten.  We need to forget our self, so that we can remember who we really are.. How much more "Zen" can one get?

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