Question
Hello, I am a practicing Catholic, and before praying to Jesus I practice zazen
because it helps me settle and be fully in the moment. Can the mind
during zazen draw inspiration from Christ’s presence in each of us? Can we sustain this feeling during practice?
Anonymous
Answer from Master Kosen
Master Deshimaru told us: when we practice zazen, we can understand Christ’s experience.
We must understand his message and compassion.
Christ wished everyone to realize what he himself realized, for everyone to become God’s son. If you become God’s son, you must also accept and take responsibility for your world’s imperfection. This is where Jesus’s crucifixion takes on its full meaning.
He took on the world’s sins and made this sacrifice so that on the day each of us entered this kingdom of the mind, the kingdom of his Father, by truly becoming his only son (yes, I forgot to tell you God had six billion only sons and only daughters), on that day, I was saying, we would be welcomed and forgiven thanks to the sacrifice Jesus made for us all.
It was a magnificently romantic, heroic, generous, and compassionate act that has become the absolute model in our cultural unconscious.
Kosen