Rope VS Snake

Imagine you were walking through a barn and you see something coiled and its right near your foot. Your first instinct is that it is a snake, and that you should run. However, when you stop and look at it more closely, you find out that its just some rope.

From this scenario, we learn there are 2 types of truths: relative and absolute. Once I discover that the snake was actually a rope, I had a choice: I could cling to my wrong understanding and keep beleiving it was a snake, or I could face the music and admit I was wrong and that it was a rope. This, I think leads right into "suchness" very easily. By no longer clinging to my wrong view, I am able to enjoy things as they are.

However, letting things be as they are can be difficult. You may see a flower, but you start to see everything that makes the flower, like water, fertilizer, sunshine, and proper cultivation. You start to see that everything has a reason why its there. In this way, nothing has a definitive self, and everything is empty or "void". You start to see that you've had a dualistic mindset, a "me and not-me", when in reality everything is connected. You also start to see that since everything is connected, everything is impermanent.

Sensei Koyo Kubose put it very simply: U=2I+2A=E. That is to say, a right understanding consists of the knowledge that everything is impermanent and interdependent, and you mush accept and appreciate things for what they are in order to live an enlightened life.

Nugget: we are supposedly living a life of eternal "becoming" ... all that we need do, therefore, is to find ourselves