Our usual understanding—that we’re born, persist for a time, and then die—creates a big problem for us human beings. We become frightened of our own mortality. The notion of our own death fills us with anxiety. We want to know, “What happens to me after I die? Where do I go? Or do I simply vanish?”

Our usual understanding—that we’re born, persist for a time, and then die—creates a big problem for us human beings. We become frightened of our own mortality. The notion of our own death fills us with anxiety. We want to know, “What happens to me after I die? Where do I go? Or do I simply vanish?”

There is a saying in Zen that birth and death are impermanent and swift. It’s considered a secret teaching, even though its expression is found everywhere. Indeed, it’s right out in the open, right in front of us all the time. We can see it wherever we cast our gaze. All we need to do is just look and we’ll see that there’s no permanence. Birth and death are found in each moment. Nothing persists at all.


We can’t actually say what Truth or Reality is. Whatever we dosay is dualistic by virtue of the fact that it’s been verbalized, put into conceptual form.