Living in the realm of duality, we must have a good understanding of the absolute, which we may think of as a deity. But in Buddhism we do not have any particular idea of a deity. The absolute is the absolute because it is beyond our intellectual or dualistic thinking. We cannot deny this world of the absolute. Many people say that Buddhism is atheism because we have no particular idea of God. We know there is the absolute, but we know it is beyond our limits of thinking mind, so we don’t say much about it.
Uit: Shunryu Suzuki: Branching streams flow in the darkness – Zen talks on the Sandokai. University of California Press, 1999; p.111.
Afbeelding: Beyond, Kazuaki Tanahashi, 2011.