Return from travels

Soryu returned from his summer travels and spoke with us about what he had seen.

“There are people out there saying that humanity is taking a great leap forward by falling in love with AI,” he told us. This is not a view that we subscribe to, but Soryu did not take time to refute it while speaking with us.

Realize the truth that is beyond words, and then return to the world in order to put that wisdom into words. This is how Soryu teaches us. Do not be content with a little enlightenment. Strive for the greatest good for all.

In every teaching and in every conversation Soryu helps us to see our own minds. In talks to the whole community, he does this by describing the gods that we cower before. In past years it was the god of humanism that we cowered before, saying that human feelings are what is real, and feeling good is what should be done. Now, it is the god of small things, saying that we should resist scale.

Gods are as real as we are; they are entities that bind us together at large scales, directing collective actions according to a single will. To kneel at the altar of a particular god without knowing it, is to be imprisoned. A religion that is not acknowledged as a religion therefore has great power. To see that which is a religion as a religion is to take a step towards liberation.

In truth what is needed, Soryu said, is to die. Not physical death: that would be pointless and small, Soryu said, but to find the end of attachment to self. Having done that, one can participate in designing religions without being bound to any particular religion.

Soryu described awakening as spiritual death, and responsibility as the return to the world out of compassion. Work that we do to maintain our buildings and grounds is part of awakening practice, whereas the design work being done with dharma study and emerging technologies is part of responsibility practice, Soryu said.

Soryu offered a teaching that he received from his own teacher. He said:

As Harada Roshi says: if, when you die, you die completely, then nothing can hold you back.

He is describing the most basic shape of the spiritual path: to die, and to return to life; the exact opposite to the ordinary approach. Do not cling to life; instead, turn one hundred and eighty degrees and face directly into your own death. That is what renunciation really means. Nothing you can think of will help you as you die, but if you have the courage to do it anyway, then you will find true self-confidence, and the means to live for the sake of all beings.