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Joe said, feigning bemusement, I think (I paraphrase from memory): "Odd how something that doesn't exist like the "self" keeps popping up on this list so often." Well, you know, in Buddhism, that's why buddhas pledge to return again and again, until all sentient beings are liberated! I was reading 13th century poet and Zen master Eihei Dogen's "Body-and- Mind Study of the Way" last night. It seems apropos, somehow (this is only a hunch) Domfox's short, rich post on the self and Erminia's, too, about her Author-Father, and to the disussion about poetic personae. It's so wonderful, I am going to type it out: 13. Zen Master Yuanwu said, "Birth is undivided activity. Death is undivided activity. Filling up the great empty sky. straightforward mind is always bits and pieces." You should quietly pursue and examine these words. Although Zen Master Yuanwu once said this, he did not understand that birth-and-death further overflows undivided activity. When you study coming and going, in coming there is birth-and-death, in going there is birth-and-death. In birth there is coming and going, in death there is coming and going.Coming and going is to fly in and fly out with the entire world of the ten directions as two or three wings, and to walk forward and backward with the entire world of the ten directions as three or five feet. With birth and death as its head and tail, the entire world of the ten directions, the true human body, freely turns the body and flaps the brain. When trunign the body and flapping the brain, it is the size of a penny, it is inside a particle of dust. It is the vast flat earth, it is a sheer eight-thousand foot cliff. Wehre there is a sheer eight-thousand foot cliff, there is the vast falt earth. In this way, the true human body is manifested as the Southern and Norhtern continents. To examine this is the study of the way. The true human body is the bones and marrow of the realm beyond consciousness and unconsciousness. Just raising this up is the study of the way. On the ninth day, ninth month, third year of Ninji [1242], this was taught to the assembly at Horin Monastery. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp