Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Duality, Non-Duality & Zen Satori

Perhaps Zen is really all about turning duality into non-duality or maybe realising that the meaning of life is life. My moment of sudden enlightenment (satori) came when I noticed an ugly woman and kind of asking the universe why a woman could be so ugly. The answer came that ugliness is a necessary part of beauty--that the two come together; each needs the other; neither can exist independently. The ugly woman allows me to see beautiful ones; without ugliness beauty could not exist:


Fleas, lice,
The horse pissing
By my pillow.

Giving the breast,
While counting
The flea-bites.

There is nothing intrinsically more beautiful or poetical about
the moon than about a dunghill; if anything, the contrary, for
the latter is full of life and warmth and energy.

Just get rid of
The mind that thinks
"This is good, that is bad",
And without any special effort,
Wherever we live is good to live in.

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