At a gathering of some of Kobun Chino Roshi’s long-term students in Santa Cruz, CA, shortly before Kobun’s death, a student asked, “Kobun, why do we sit (meditate)?”
He replied: “We sit to make life meaningful. The significance of our life is not experienced in striving to create some perfect thing. We must simply start with accepting ourselves. Sitting brings us back to actually who and where we are. This can be very painful. Self-acceptance is the hardest thing to do. If we can’t accept ourselves, we are living in ignorance, this darkest night. We may still be awake, but we don’t know where we are. We cannot see. The mind has no light. Practice is this candle in our very darkest room.”
Photo and text courtesy of Weekly Words of Wisdom chosen by Lama Surya Das
