“There is so much energy around being sure… Thinking ‘I know,’ we become so narrow.”

Do you ever think ‘I am right’ and ‘you are wrong’? “I, you, all of us, can get caught up in deeply entrenched ideas of truth.” Koshin Sensei invites us to pay attention to our minds, to these thoughts and feelings about one another. How often does our ‘rightness’ and certainty separate us from one another?  

In this recent dharma talk, Koshin Sensei shares insights from an early follower of the Buddha whose poetry cautions us: “Careful of having the goal of gaining rightness.” When we are convinced of our own ‘rightness’ we can get haughty, even deathly condescending. We often try to surround ourselves with those who are as right as we are. The insightful poet observes what this looks and sounds like. “Only here there is purity. That’s what they say. No other doctrines are pure, so they say. Insisting that what they depend on is good. They are deeply entrenched in an idiosyncratic truth.” This is how our ‘rightness’ actually seeks controversy and creates deep divisions among us. How often do you do this? What if instead of getting so caught up in right and wrong, we started practicing just being together – human to human? Koshin is inviting us to find the humanness in the face across from you. He is reminding us to be in relationship and know that everyone carries suffering. Can we get intimate with suffering and have the courage to practice suffering together? Koshin reminds us that there is connection and liberation here. “To know our suffering is one thing. To make it into a truth is another thing. And to turn it into a gate is another thing. And sometimes they all go together.” 

Koshin Paley Ellison Sensei is a Zen teacher, Jungian psychotherapist, leader in contemplative care, and co-founder of an educational non-profit called the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care. His books, grounded in Buddhist wisdom and practice, have gained national attention. Through its numerous educational programs, contemplative retreats, and Soto Zen Buddhist practices, the New York Zen Center touches thousands of lives every year.

Heart Sutra by Kanho Yakushiji –  Buddhist priest and musician of the Rinzai sect and Imaji temple in Imabari, Japan. In 2003, he formed “KISSAQUO”, a songwriting duo based in Kyoto.

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The post The Perils of Certainty | Koshin Paley Ellison appeared first on New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care.