To be reborn hourly and daily in this life, we need to die — to give of ourselves wholly to the demands of the moment, so that we utterly "disappear." Thoughts of past, present, or future, of life and death, of this world and the next, are transcended in the superabundance of the now. Time and timelessness coalesce: this is the moment of eternity.

Many have come to realization simply by listening to the tinkling of a bell or some other sound

The truth is that everything is One, and this of course is not a numerical one.

Mindfulness is a state wherein one is totally aware in any situation and so always able to respond appropriately. Yet one is aware of being aware. Mindlessness, on the other hand, or "no-mindness" as it has been called, is a condition of such complete absorption that there is not vestige of self-awareness.

You yourself are time- your body, your mind, the objects around you. Plunge into the river of time and swim, instead of standing on the banks and noting the course of the currents.

For the ordinary man, whose mind is a checkerboard of crisscrossing reflections, opinions, and prejudices, bare attention is virtually impossible; his life is thus centered not in reality itself but in his ideas of it. By focusing the mind wholly on each objects and every action, zazen strips it of extraneous thoughts and allows us to enter into a full rapport with life.

To be reborn hourly and daily in this life, we need to die — to give of ourselves wholly to the demands of the moment, so that we utterly "disappear." Thoughts of past, present, or future, of life and death, of this world and the next, are transcended in the superabundance of the now. Time and timelessness coalesce: this is the moment of eternity.