Dear Roshi I would kindly like to ask for your advice.I am now studying at University again and I realize that after some years of training at Sogenji I seem to have lost some skill at the kind of learning that is now required of me. This type of learning is rational conceptual discriminative thinking. At Sogenji you often mentioned that from a young age we gather information as I am doing now in large quantities but that this is different from the type of knowing we strive to realize at Sogenji.My fear is that using this kind of conceptual discriminative and rational thinking and gathering this information will obscure my true nature further and block my wonder and awe for being alive. Are these two necessarily in conflict or is there a way to develop all these simultaneously? Thank you very much.

While living in society, everyone is throwing their personal perception away and looks through the eyes of society. Thus we get moved around by outer situations and it is as if we are creating our own problems. You may say that personal perception is egoistic and if that is what you think, that is how you will perceive it, yet our personal perception is like a mirror – it does not judge or think.

You may believe that thinking about things and judging them is your habit, but actually it is your karma.

That is why we only concentrate on MU, so that we can let go of the karma and awaken to our true human mind. This is what the ancients called: Buddha Nature. Actually, all existence can only be said to be Buddha Nature.

Only humans create the karma of thinking, thus we circle through the six realms. Thus we need to enter the samadhi of MU, experience this mind which is before thinking.

If you have awakened to the mind before thinking even once, then you stop measuring all by egoistic standards.

That is why the Buddha said: First of all awaken to your true mind, then you can do anything in your life, because it all will be of huge importance to society.