Norman Zoketsu Fischer, long-time teacher, poet, and former abbot of San Francisco Zen Center, writes about the impermanence of time and body:
“Dogen, a 13th Century Japanese Zen master, asks, ‘What is that appears?’ This is also my question. What is that appears? Who is it who is alive, in this body, in this world?
“Time is strange. We live within it, depend on it, take it for granted, yet it relentlessly passes, and our lives slip through our fingers moment to moment. Where does time come from, and where does it go? How is it that every moment we are different, we grow, we develop, we are born, we die? What are we supposed to be doing with this life?
“After many years of grappling with these questions during the course of my long spiritual practice, I have come to have a feeling for their answer. We don’t really know what appears, what time is, where it goes. But we are here to understand. And we all have our own way of understanding, and of expressing that understanding through the living of our lives.
“Each of us has a place in this world. Taking that place, I have come to feel, is our real job as human beings. We are not generic people, we are individuals, and when we appreciate that fact completely and allow ourselves to embrace it and grow into it fully, we see that taking our unique place in this world is the one thing that gives us a sense of ultimate fulfillment.”
* Fischer, N. (2003). Taking our places: the Buddhist path to truly growing up. Harper, pp.1-2). As guiding teacher to several Zen groups, including Mountain Rain Zen Community in Vancouver, BC, Norman regularly gives public talks and holds retreats. Click here for his website.
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