Questions to Master Deshimaru

Question

You say that Zen wants to reach the highest wisdom and the deepest love, but some people think zazen produces indifference to others, they say it is the opposite of the active charity taught by Christianity. How would you say that zazen develops an attitude of love?

Answer

The ultimate dimension, in the very depths of being, the supreme dimension of life, is universal consciousness and love. Each cannot exist without the other. Truth and love are one and the same thing. So you can say that the active charity taught by Christianity is included in that dimension and is a direct emanation of it. Zen Buddhism is also a religion of love because it is the religion of the bodhisattvas who abandon everything to help others, to work for the salvation of others before their own salvation (and in that practice, it goes even further than Christianity). And the first of the precepts is fuse charity - which means more than a material gift; it means giving morally as well, a sacrifice. Not just giving to somebody but giving oneself and giving to God, to Buddha. But where is the source of this active charity to be found, if not in the knowledge of one's own heart, of one's profound ego, which is that of every other existence, acquired through meditation? Zen also teaches harmony, harmonizing with others chanting the sutras together, meditating together, cultivating harmony together. In Japanese, to be a monk means to harmonize. Inner spiritual solitude is good but one must always harmonize with, turn toward, others too. "All go together, beyond the beyond, to the other shore."