Warning against attachment to awakening experiences
Kensho and samadhi are temporary. You cannot dwell in them. If you dwell in them, they become the most powerful Mara.
Kensho as continuous, not once-and-done
We do not talk about kensho so much in our practice. How to nourish, how to continue and generate your life many more times in this practice, is our concern. Kensho does not happen just once. A thousand times you realize it and expand.
The unrepeatable nature of awakening
Whatever the cause of your opening-up experience, you cannot repeat it. You can remember, of course, but you cannot repeat the same experience again. This tells you, you have to wipe out all such experiences and not idealize them.
Sushi metaphor for non-clinging to awakening
When you sit down in any stage of achievement and quit making an effort to go on and on, even if that was a fantastic awakening to you, it becomes a hindrance. Like tonight's sushi was great, but the taste is gone. We don't cling to the experience.
Faith as seeing through the created to the creator
We can talk about faith and trust between people because of this basic pattern of the creator and the created. In other words, when you see a creator behind a person or things, your faith pierces through whomever you are relating to, to the creator.
Each breath as complete life and death
We constantly pass away and constantly recover from death, so that, while we don't call it "life and death" each breath is new, and each breath is separate. You don't put a number on it. It is only one breath, and when one breath is done, that's all.
Approaching the question of death with directness and humor
Is life going to continue even after death? You use the words, "pass on." Sounds great! You pass on and on, hopefully. But we actually don't know what happens when this body falls off, like a ripe persimmon, or a heavy blossom which cannot stay any more, and falls on the ground to deteriorate and become soil, and gas, and return to its elements.
On the grief of those who remain
The one who goes is rather the lucky one. The ones who remain and face the death of a loved one are actually very miserable, wondering whether that person is coming back or not.
Kobun's master on God's existence as 'convenient'
One day a young American man came to my master's temple and had a direct encounter with him. The American asked, "Do you think God exists, or not?" My master answered, "He must exist. He certainly must exist." The man said, "Oh? I thought Buddhists didn't speak about God." My master answered, "It is very convenient."
The mystery of continuous identity
An ordinary, common thing is not exciting, although when you take a good, close look, an ordinary thing is very precious. The fact that we keep the same identical existence in time/space is the greatest mystery.
The full arc of life toward cessation
Life is nothing but birth and growth, and maintaining and nourishing, and flourishing and ripening, and you come to cessation. In visible form, you come to nothing. Your elements return to various places. We say that is extinction.
Kobun's personal statement on God's presence
I do not have any question or doubt about it, even though I haven't met Him. There are many names, but the actual one doesn't have a name. It is present in the future, and fills wherever space and time is. It is that kind of presence, I have no doubt of that. I don't know anything about it, but I have no doubt about it.
Ego as vapor, quality over length of life
"Ego" means the self-made notion of self identity, which can become like vapor immediately. So it is in kind of a dangerous state. You don't know if your life is eternal, or even shorter than a moment. The length doesn't matter, but the quality of it, how you experience it, is the point.