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As an example, in the common-sense way of knowing I know that someday maybe even today I will die. I understand this, but at the same time the "I" that "understands" has no desire to die. When I reflect in such a common-sense or in the objective, scientific way, I don't grasp myself in my totality. My reflection is only partial. I see only parts of myself. Or, to approach the difference from another angle, in terms of my bonno-the unlimited capacity for evil in my subconscious depths-I know I am not a good man but this "I" who thinks he is aware of this still harbors somewhere within "me" the thought that "I am good." In parts of myself, as in thinking of my past, I can say that "I" am bad, but the "I" looking at those evil parts of my life which I condemn, this "I" looks at parts of myself which are also "I" and which I objectify- What "I" see about "myself" in this way is only partial seeing, filled with the tension of subject-object dichotomy.
In Buddhist wisdom, prajna, the wisdom through which shinjin is established, subject and object are brought into a unifying whole. What I am and what I think about myself is totally whole, totally complete. There is an interpenetration of the subject (all that I see inwardly and outwardly in the world) with the object (all that I am in being seen)-thus a simultaneous realization of interdependence and oneness. In this realization, subject and object having become one, the tension of dichotomy is released. I am then able to see all things are objects and at the same time, that all things are subjects. The self that is able to see that all things are subjects is "Great Self." From the perspective of the Great Absolute Self, when we eat other life we see that we are killing our own life and descending into hell. The primary focus of Buddhism is to waken to this basic contradiction of life: that we kill in order to survive. Some of us may have the attitude: "we pay for it and therefore we may consume it." The Buddhist attitude however is that even the life of one egg is equal in lifevalue to that of my own life. In this attitude, the choice to take other life in order to survive is something I can make based on my awareness of the equal value of all life. Originally, in India, the focus was on not taking the lives of animals, but gradually this evolved to the stage where all things in existence were included into what is called life. The realization developed that man in his egocentricity destroys all these in order to survive.
Man's historical process has shown that the world has developed in material ways through his own ingenuity. He has employed science and technology but yet has not reached a point of security and happiness through these developments. Thus it is important for us to look at life from the perspective of Buddhist wisdom, seeing that all life is interrelated and has the same value as one's own life. "I" am included in all things as object and all things are included in "me "as subject. The world and myself are not separated, not divided, not different, but share a natural oneness.
A Zen Master was once told by a student that he was afraid of death. The fearful student asked whether there was a way to escape dying. The Zen Master's answer was, "When it comes time to die, it's okay to die. This is the only way to escape death" (i.e., to avoid the fear of death). This reply was made from the standpoint of non-ego: all things are interrelated. It is from this all-object viewpoint that flowers bud, blossom and die, that human beings are born, live and die. All have the same weight, same value-so why the tears? All things have the same value as objects in the natural world.
In the natural world of things-as-they-are, that which is true and real-life-is not beautiful but stark, severe, awesome. How simple and yet how difficult to see that my being "me" is so in exactly the way the rock is a rock, the tree is a tree, the flower is a flower. I am one with all of these and with the droplet of water that as water can flow, can fall as rain, can freeze as steam or fog, be itself and yet at the same time be one drop in the vast ocean or one infinitely small and changing component of a cloud passing an unseen horizon in the sky.
To live in the world of non-ego and at the same time to live in the world in which all objects are equal as subjects is to live in the Buddha-world. The Buddhist sense of all-self means all things have an equal value of life and are equal in value to my own life. This is the Shin Buddhist way of "seeing," the Buddhist wisdom described by the Sanskrit word prajna.
Many years ago a Shin Buddhist layman, a man of shinjin named Genza, and his friend Naoji, both in their eighties, be came ill. Naoji still had an unresolved problem and asked his daughter to take this to Genza. This the daughter did, repeating to Genza her father's statement of his problem: "I am afraid to die!"
The answer sent back by Genza was, "Naoji, why don't you just die. It's okay to die. I'm one with you." This is the attitude of non-ego which is at the same time the way of the Great Self. It is an awareness rooted in the activity of prajna- an activity called "awakening" or "realization."
Flowers bloom, wither, and die. Man is born, lives, and dies. This is how things are. This is true and real. And it is in this profound dimension of existential reality that we concretely experience shinjin as religious experience.
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