Living invested in self-image is painful because our sense of being a decent human being, capable and kind, is periodically challenged when we get a low grade on an exam, when somebody gets angry at us, when we get embarrassed. But until we can see deeply enough through the falsity of it, we’re stuck in that purgatory of dissatisfaction and pain. If our samadhi is deep enough that in those hours we die to our persona, emerging from that profound state into awakening, we realize, as Harada Roshi put it, “All I need to do is receive, is simply to receive.” In other words, we no longer need to defend, no longer need to rationalize; clarity simply arises to respond in a way that is appropriate in each arising circumstance. The anxiety that accompanies those previously felt needs will recede and, eventually, with the long maturation, disappear completely.
♦
Excerpted from Deepening Zen by Mitra Bishop Roshi (The Sumeru Press, 2024).
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