With apologies to Hakuin Ekaku.
Reading once again Identity of the Relative and the Absolute I was struck by the phrase ‘Reading these words you should grasp the great Reality’. Yes, I know that if you know what I am talking about, you have most likely read or heard the Sandokai hundreds or thousands of times. In a way, that is part of what I want to talk about. With repetition I create a kind of surface familiarity. It is as though I don’t look into it because know that I have looked into it already, many times. Already I should heed the warning of 'many times' but somehow I have put a limit on my capacity to have an insight, or worse to examine my understanding again. This idea that something is familiar and therefor of less importance is a pervasive lie.
Once many years ago when I was a teenager in South Africa, I was walking down a country road near Johannesburg. There were some clouds in the sky and it began to rain. One of those unexpected spring showers that just happen. There was nowhere for me to take shelter and had no rain gear, so I just stood under a tall Eucalyptus tree. I was wet and a little cold and just standing there watching the lightening and rain. I put my hands on the tree and just stood there with my back to the rain for a while looking at the tree. Suddenly there was another flash of lightening and I felt a powerful jolt of electricity from the tree. Moments later, another flash and another jolt.
I tried to freeze time, to hold the universe still. The sensations of the electricity running through my body were direct and immediate and bewildering.It was no a powerful electric shock. It was unexpected. It could not be ignored. It could not be dismissed and there was no way to prepare for it. So, why isn't all life like that, or is it.
