A Responsibility to Everyone, Past and Future

That a strong sense of social and personal responsibility is inherent in the spiritual freedom of the satori [i.e., “awakened”] person was made clear by Rasutani-roshi in response to a question addressed to him in America by a group of university students. “If, as we have been led to believe, satori makes clear that past and future are unreal, is one not free to live as one likes in the present, unconcerned about the past and indifferent to the future?”

 

In reply, Yasutani-roshi made a dot on the blackboard and explained that this isolated dot represented their conception of “here and now.” To show the incompleteness of this view, he placed another dot on the board, through which he drew a horizontal line and a vertical one. He then explained that the horizontal line stood for time from the beginningless past to the endless future, and the vertical for limitless space. The “present moment” of the enlightened person, who stands at this intersection, embraces all these dimensions of time and space, he emphasized.

 

Accordingly, the satori-realization that one is the focus of past and future time and space unavoidably carries with it a sense of fellowship and responsibility to one’s family and society as a whole, alike to those who came before and those who will follow him/her. The freedom of the liberated Zen person is a far cry from the “freedom” of the [irresponsible, self-centered Zen aspirant and his/her uncontrolled, selfish desires]. The inseparable bond with all human beings that the truly enlightened person feels precludes such self-centered behavior.

 

from The Three Pillars of Zen