Yes, I can absolutely do that. We can treat it like a contemplative dialogue—where I respond in the voice or spirit of the Buddha as presented in either Theravāda or Sōtō Zen traditions. Each tradition brings a unique flavor:
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Theravāda Buddha would speak with clarity, rooted in the early Pāli Canon, emphasizing the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, impermanence (anicca), non-self (anattā), and the cessation of suffering (dukkha).
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Sōtō Zen Buddha might respond more poetically or paradoxically, often pointing directly to experience, emphasizing just sitting (shikantaza), suchness, and non-thinking—what Dōgen called “dropping off body and mind.”
Would you like to ask a question, and I’ll respond in either or both voices? Let me know if you'd like the Theravāda Buddha, the Sōtō Zen Buddha, or both in conversation.
[Theravāda Buddha speaks first, calm and clear like a still forest pool]:
The question of whether God exists is not one I answered directly, for it does not lead to the cessation of suffering. I taught what is useful for liberation.
There are many views in the world—some speak of a creator, some of many gods, some of none. But all beings, whether human or divine, are bound by impermanence. Even the gods of the heavenly realms are not eternal. They arise due to past causes and pass away in time.
What is more important than belief is this:
Do you suffer?
Do you seek peace?
Then attend to your mind.
Observe the arising and passing of all things.
When craving ceases, suffering ceases.
That is the way I have shown.
[Now the Sōtō Zen Buddha speaks, with the quiet smile of the mountains]:
Does God exist?
Sit.
Watch the question arise and fall like a cloud.
Does it leave a trace?
Mountains walk. Rivers sing.
When you eat, eat. When you sit, sit.
Do not seek to grasp the ungraspable.
In the ten thousand things, nothing is lacking.
The divine is not elsewhere—it is not a thing to believe in.
It is the rice steaming in the pot, the crow on the roof,
your breath, your doubt, your very question.
Let the idea of God drop away, as a leaf falls in autumn.
What remains is thusness.
Would you like to go deeper into either voice—or ask the next question?
[Theravāda Buddha replies, with the steadiness of one who has seen deeply into the world]:
Suffering exists because of causes.
I called this dukkha—the unsatisfactoriness woven into conditioned existence. Birth, aging, illness, death; separation from what we love, union with what we do not love—all are forms of dukkha.
And what causes it?
Craving. Clinging. Ignorance.
The thirst (taṇhā) that longs for pleasure, for becoming, for non-becoming.
From this thirst arises grasping, from grasping arises becoming, from becoming—birth.
And from birth—inevitably—suffering.
As for evil: it arises from greed, hatred, and delusion.
When the mind is untrained, when beings are ruled by craving and ignorance, unwholesome actions follow.
No external being creates this—it is the natural law of cause and effect: kamma.
But know this:
Whatever is caused can be brought to an end.
When ignorance is dispelled, when craving is relinquished, suffering ceases.
This is the path I have taught.
[The Sōtō Zen Buddha speaks next, like wind through tall grass—quiet but unmistakable]:
Why is there evil? Why is there suffering?
Do not seek answers the mind can grasp.
Sit still, and suffering reveals itself—not as a concept, but as your very body and mind.
In this moment: are you separate from suffering?
Look.
When you say "evil," whom do you blame?
When you say "suffering," whom do you pity?
Zazen is not an escape. It is a total entering.
The fire and the lotus are not two.
Even delusion is part of awakening.
Dōgen said:
"To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be awakened by the ten thousand things."
Evil and suffering arise in the mind that divides the world.
Let the question burn itself out.
Then, perhaps, you will hear the sound of one hand clapping.
Would you like to continue with another question? Or deepen into one of these replies?
[Theravāda Buddha responds, eyes steady, his voice like a clear bell in the morning air]:
I did not declare: “There is no God.”
Nor did I declare: “There is a God.”
I walked a middle path—neither affirming nor denying what does not lead to freedom.
For whether one holds the view “God exists” or “God does not exist,”
if one clings to views, one remains bound.
What I taught is what can be known and seen here and now:
that all conditioned things are impermanent, that clinging leads to suffering,
and that there is a path leading to the end of suffering.
If you wish to call this atheism, know that it is not the atheism of anger, nor the theism of consolation.
It is the letting go of both.
It is the silence beyond opinion, where peace is found.
[Sōtō Zen Buddha, sitting with a cup of tea, answers without answering]:
Is this atheism?
When you speak, the world divides. When you are silent, the world is whole.
Does the pine tree believe in God?
Does the falling snow debate theology?
The Buddha’s message is not about belief.
It is about waking up—before the tea grows cold.
Dōgen sat with eyes open to the moon, and he did not ask it if it believed.
He simply bowed.
In this moment, where is God? Where is no-God?
Just this.
Would you like to keep walking with these voices? Or speak to the Buddha in another way?
[The Sōtō Zen Buddha smiles gently, his gaze deep and unfixed, as if seeing through the very fabric of the question. He turns toward Jesus, and his words emerge like mist over a quiet lake]:
You speak of resurrection, teacher of Galilee—
of dying and rising, of transformation,
of the body sown in weakness and raised in glory.
And yet I ask:
In this very moment, what is not already risen?
When you walked among fishermen and tax collectors,
when you wept, when you broke bread,
was that not the body of God?
What do you mean by resurrection,
if not the opening of the eye that sees: this is it?
You say, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
To this I bow.
For one who is fully alive, who has dropped off body and mind,
who meets each thing as it is—
they too are the way, the truth, and the life.
But let me speak plainly.
If you wait for another world, you miss this one.
If you hope only in a future body, you overlook the holiness of this very breath.
Dōgen said:
“Impermanence is Buddha-nature.”
So when the leaf falls, do not cry for its return.
Look closely, and you will see it has become the soil, the tree, the bird that sings in the morning.
There is no need to rise again
when nothing has ever truly fallen away.
To live fully is already to be resurrected,
without death, without waiting, without end.
Amazing, the conversational mode works so well. All very poetic.
ReplyDeleteIf only we could sit, and realize the permanence of impermanence.