Question
And thank you for your compassion. Kisses for a witch… Yet that was exactly what I needed. It is hard in zazen, motionless, yet I do not move; I observe… fingernails growing and becoming claws. I observe and see all the evil stored within me: it is hard to see that. Sometimes, on my zafu, I even feel that I am physically transforming into a witch… a long hooked nose, black teeth, and I see—truly see—thoughts emerging, black and distorted, because I have taken in and stored so much. The harm done to me, the evil I have seen or encountered and often relieved in others, is still there, inside. But becoming aware of it is wonderful. I come from a line of women healers who removed evil from others (my grandmother, great-grandmother, etc.). They also had truly prophetic dreams and could immediately read people’s thoughts, even if they did not know them. Just one look into someone’s eyes or at their whole body, and sometimes they even knew that person’s entire history, faults, qualities, and characteristics. This knowledge was passed down from generation to generation, from grandmother to granddaughter. I neither asked for nor received this transmission, but in zazen I clearly feel that I carry my ancestors’ experiences within me.
I would have liked you to answer the question about the ego I sent you. It is closely connected; it is not a question just for the sake of asking you something, but a real question. Thank you.
Lise
Answer from Master Kosen
Observing during zazen is all well and good, but if you identify with what you observe, the result is not good. You must observe everything you observe with humor, detachment, and compassion.
Did the Buddha not say: the individual, the continuity of consciousness, and even particles, God, and the creator—all these are merely fictions of the mind?
Kosen