"Sawaki Roshi used to describe zazen as 'the self selfing the self.' Usually people assume that they are born onto a stage or into a world that already exists, that they dance on the stage for a while and then leave when they die. Actually, though, when I am born, I give birth to my world as well! I live together with that world; therefore, that world forms the contents of my self. Then, when I die, I take the world with me; that is, my world dies with me. That is the rationale behind Sawaki Roshi's noncommonsensical expression, 'self selfing the self.' I describe it as living out your own life through all the circumstances you may encounter. You give birth to, live out, and die together with your world. That is the reality of the life of the self, and to actually manifest the self that makes the self into the self is jijuyū zanmai. When we do zazen, we personally experience this clearly; we become nothing other than ourselves! Though we become nothing other than ourselves alone, the whole world is contained within that self."
Opening the Hand of Thought
Kosho Uchiyama
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