The Matrix

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

Zen is a very practical tool. It is also rooted in Buddhism, an ancient Eastern religion. A religion without a God, per se. What is a religion without a God? The question is not unimportant, but I suspect it is not helpful either. Buddha set aside anything that was not helpful in his practice. Yet, in doing so, developed a set of practices we tie together over the millenia and call a religion..or a philosophy.. .or a way of life. The latter, being most likely the more correct understanding.

Do words parsing this and that help us get closer to truly understanding ourselves? Do words get us any closer to realization? Words can offer us a degree of clarity between us, but only a degree. It is the heart/mind that must be shared...or to put it in a more contemporary sense, plugged in.

Like Neo in The Matrix, we are able to realize we are "plugged in" to vast Mind. Each of us gives sensation to Mind. We and Mind are, in truth, One. Unlike Neo, there is nothing sinister about this Matrix and the world we make without our awareness of our plugged in nature is the false world. Our Matrix is our true universe and the vast and deep interconnectedness of everything is our true experience. Like a giant, boundless organism we live and breath, expand and contract.
Now, forget this: go practice. Test your relationship to the universe. Look deeply. Where do you begin and end? Do you begin or end? What exactly is this "you" you think exists? Is there any such thing as a causeless beginning? How can anything ever actually "end"?

Remember, matter can neither be created or destroyed. What is, is, and always was and always will be: its form will change, but its substance, its essential nature remains.

As Alan Watts pointed out years ago, "we are it."

Be well.