Buddhism the Religion of No-Religion

Zen master Dogen put it this way, “Spring does not become summer. First there is spring and then there is summer. Each season stays in its own place.” In the same way, the you of yesterday does not become the you of today.

Buddhists believe in this kind of supreme god, but they do not believe that that god is particularly important.

Buddhists believe in this kind of supreme god, but they do not believe that that god is particularly important

A person who is a master in Zen is called buji, which means “no business, no affectation, nothing special.”

Similarly, to cross a river you need a boat, but when you have reached the other side, you do not pick up the boat and carry it across the land on your back. The brick, the boat, the scaffolding, all represent religious technology, or method, and in the end these are all to disappear.

To be recollected is to be completely alert and available for the present, which is the only place you are ever going to be in. Yesterday does not exist. Tomorrow never comes. There is only today.

To be recollected is to be completely alert and available for the present, which is the only place you are ever going to be in. Yesterday does not exist. Tomorrow never comes. There is only today.

This is called the Doctrine of Mutual Interdependence. Everything hangs on you and you hang on everything, just as the two sticks support each other. This idea is conveyed in the symbol of Indra’s net. Imagine a multidimensional spider’s web covered with dewdrops.

The second Noble Truth leads back to the first: clinging is what makes for suffering.

Our quest to make things permanent, to straighten everything out and get it fixed, presents us with an impossible and insoluble problem, and therefore we experience duhkha, the sense of fundamental pain and frustration that results from trying to make impermanent things permanent.