S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 2 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 1 6 5 3 Sandó Kaisen Dear Audience, Everything derives from our spirit. However, this spirit is not limited to us because it is also in everything, and there isn‘t a place from which it is absent. It is because we have reduced it to our little existence we call human that we search for it outside as Spirit, other and impenetrable. You are running after what might be the best method to bring about your encounter with the divine, but you refuse to recognize this Spirit as your own. If you acknowledge this fact, then you won‘t be missing anything nor will anything be in excess. What you miss comes from the constant cravings you try to gratify by material or spiritual devices. Once rid of the first, you throw yourselves heart and soul into the second. Now, there are several sorts of errors: The severely confused have lost their way in astrology, the art of divination, of symbolism, strange signs and magic. Some have convinced themselves that awakening can be obtained through reading, studying, philosophy and all the modern techniques that the world has instrumentalized. Others believe that the accumulation of merits, charity, prayers, rituals, subservience to Gods, Bodhisattvas and other Buddhas will lead them to awakening. Still others have thrown themselves body and soul into extreme practices. Without using the subtleties of their spirit, they stupidly repeat the errors of others or practice the Way according to their own interpretation, going astray and refusing the help of enlightened beings. Even though their approach appears to be sincere, they only transmigrate within the meanders of their limited comprehension. Lastly, others, as they do not obtain the object of their desire, eagerly look for a guru, and then for another, hoping the miracle will come true. Some, discouraged and disappointed, return to the materialistic world and pursue their desires on another level. Appropriation is what they all have in common. One wants something and wants to be sure of possessing it. This principle is valid for material questions as well as for spiritual questions. Man is the greatest builder of crutches. But when death will come, on what crutches shall we lean? Dear friends, when we walk, the entire universe walks. If this is so, what can I lean on? Is there anything someone else can do in my place? Eating, defecating, walking, breathing, thinking, sleeping, sitting, moving this body, moving the spirit? I am alone in sickness, in suffering, in old age and death. There is no place, no time when I am not alone. We have invented notions such as friend and enemy, love and hate, good and bad, but no one can live my life in any of its details. And lastly, there is neither “this” nor “that”. Life is such as it presents itself and such as it is, we must receive it. Good and evil have nothing to do with that, and the notions of friends and enemy have no place here, because everything that happens is a projection of the spirit. But in reality, there is no spirit which is mine or About the author Sandó Kaisen (1952) is one of the main representatives of the Sótó Zen Buddhist schools in Europe. It was spread through Europe in the 1960s thanks to the efforts of Master Deshimaru. The main practice of this school is the sitting meditation – Zazen, during which the position of the body, the respiration and attention are important. Master Sandó Kaisen introduced himself to the East of Europe in 1990. Since then, his books have been published there and people could have come to see him on several lectures and introductions to Zazen he has given there, and learn about him from various press articles and programs on the radio and TV. Master Sandó Kaisen transmits only one thing “from my soul to yours”: to break through the shell of habits and securities that imprisoned the being, to touch the Way and make it real in pure consciousness of the body, so that we can understand the Spirit of Unity.
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