“We believe everything is out there.
We often act as if we understand everything. This is very egoistic. When we see the world only in terms of ourselves, we lack a broad perspective.
The real world consists of both a conceptual world and a nonconceptual world. But we ignore the world we cannot get in our hands. When you cannot understand it, you reject it. But reality is not just the reality you understand. Even before you create any ideas or concepts about it, it is already present. It consists of the merging of what can be thought of and what cannot be thought of. Words cannot touch it.
This place, where nothing can be pinned down, is where we actually live moment to moment. If you think you can understand your life with just your ideas, you are ignoring where and how you actually exist.
All things – good and bad, right and wrong – are manifestations of the real world. You cannot understand the world just in terms of your own views. You must open to what you don’t understand as well as what you do understand.
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Usually we live our lives only in terms of the world we can see. When we do, we emphasize ourselves. We place the I first. Even when we take up the spiritual life, we place the I first. In other words, we pull everything down to the level of our personal views and feelings. We never forget ourselves.
What we tend to ignore is the world that sees us. This is not the world you think you see or hear. It is actually the world as it is before you are conscious of it – before you form some idea about it. If you emphasize yourself, you will completely forget this world.
If you want to practice compassion, you must accept simultaneously the world you see and the world that sees you. You can’t judge your life just in terms of what you can see – that is, from your ego-centered perspective.”
– Dainin Katagiri
