Tao Te Ching Chapter 80-9 Out-Tao (Heresy) Seniya / Gedo Senni / Settled

Today's Tao

Make them settle in their dwellings. (Ch.80)


No life. No end of life.

不生 不滅 [fusho fumetsu].

In Zen Buddhism, they say so.

Then, what happens after you die?

Nothing happens since there is no life in the first place.

There is no after-life.

Since Tao doesn't have time, there is neither before nor after.

"Life" is a name given to a sequence of holograms, which are being created simultaneously.


In his «Shobogenzo», Zen Master Dogen repeatedly denies the concept of Out-Tao, or non-Buddhist, Gedo Senni 外道先尼.

Some call him Heresy Seniya.

Out-Tao Seniya thinks that, after one dies, his soul goes back to "the sea of nature".

(Sokushinzebutsu 即心是仏, «Shobogenzo»)


Please let me make sure that we do not go anywhere after our life.

It's impossible since there is no "self" in the first place.

"Self" is a name given to an interpretation of some parts of a hologram.

Watch out!

Please do NOT think that you go back to Tao after your life.

You are permanently settled in Tao.


[Note]
You are Tao itself. Therefore, you don't have to go beck to Tao. Or rather, you cannot go back because you are already one with Tao. The word "return / go back 復 [fuku]" in Tao Te Ching suggests recycling Tao's energy. Remembering that true You are Tao is one way to do it.


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-Out-Tao (Heresy) Seniya / Gedo Senni / Settled 80-9
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-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 80


Lao Tzu answers your question!



☞«Recommended Books 6» "This is the end / Beautiful friend / This is the end / My only friend, the end", sang James Douglas "Jim" Morrison of Doors. Zen Master Dogen repeatedly denied the concept of "the end". Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima tackled it. Where do we go after we say "good-bye" to life? How do we reincarnate ourselves in another body? Does reincarnation really exist? Mishima asked us the question in the beginning of «Spring Snow», which is the first book of the tetralogy «The Sea of Fertility». Then, at the very end of «The Decay of the Angel», which is the fourth of the tetralogy and the last of all the works of Yukio Mishima, he had an old Buddhist nun answer the question with another question: "Does life really exist?" If life doesn't exist, what is reincarnation? The answer is simple: the constant emission of a hologram is reincarnation. "Don't worry, my old friend Jim. There is no end", the Zen master would say to the rock poet.