Formed in Sunyata (Emptiness), at birth we become form—perfect and complete. Buddha’s all beings are lacking nothing, have complete wisdom, all knowledge and understanding, happiness, joy, love, infinite-unlimited potential. Already there. No exceptions.

Through Ego-Delusion we forget. Re-formed in Ignorance, forgetting What we Are. Become more, better, different. An endless, insatiable, pursuit of happiness, we become. Suffering—stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, discontentment, quiet desperation. Jobs we don’t like. Joblessness. Lack—not because that’s really the way it is and there really isn’t enough. “Behold the Lilly’s of the field, the Birds of the air.”

Who am I? Who are You? Ever see a three-year old ask such questions? Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, Catholic, Jew, Buddhist? Prison walls! Worthy, unworthy, good, bad, good enough, not enough—ever since the Tower of Babel, babel, babel, babel. Lonelier, fearful, discriminated, discriminate. The fruits of Ignorance.

Buddha! It means Wake-up. Respect! Look again it means. Look Without conditioning. Without what “they say”. The work of true spirituality. If you never know the difference between what you came with and what you picked up along the way—a lifetime of deaf, dumbness and blindness.

It’s only a dream. Wake up! Buddha! Awake! Buddha! Everywhere is the Pure Land! The Kingdom of Heaven! Love, happiness, joy, contentment: Even when it rains, even when it doesn’t go our way. Employed, unemployed. Money, security, broke, uncertainty—it’s all the same. We know there’s always a way.

The Way? Right where You Are! Peace in. Peace out. If not now, When? If not you, Who?

Seijaku Roshi, founder of The Zen Society/Pine Wind Zen Community, is Abbot of Jizo-an Monastery, in Shamong, NJ, 609-268-9151, TheZenSociety.org.