Thank you, Open, for your powerful words, which I agree with and know deeply from experience. From what I know of Zen, I feel that you align with it in many very profound ways.
 

I feel to defend Zen, to as small a degree as I am able here in this forum, because, as you say, it is often misinterpreted. In the years of Zen training, never was ‘non-duality’ a part of the teachings or inferred in any way. Very much not so. Traditional, authentic Zen is profoundly subtle and sophisticated, yet very simple. The Buddha was always careful not to say one way or another when asked questions on these matters, and this comes through in the training – I found that there was absolutely no where to ‘stick one’s flag’, no ‘me’ encouraged, and no thing to believe – though we were advised to have ‘great faith, great doubt, and great determination’.
 

To reinforce what you say, there’s an ancient Chinese Ch’an (Zen) story: A Zen master and his student were walking one day, when the student had a realization, and excitedly told the master that he had suddenly realized that nothing really existed. The master slapped him hard across the face, saying ‘does that exist?’
 

Over a period of just a year in training, without being aware of it the sense of a separate ‘I’ dissolved. It was simply gone. I found life flowing joyfully and the root sense of ‘I’ that I’d carried around for so long was no longer there, but everything was happening perfectly – really the end of suffering as the Buddha encouraged his followers to realize.
 

With regards to a soul, when the Buddha was asked ‘Does reincarnation happen or not?’ he replied, ‘It does and it does not.’ Apply this to a soul and rebirth. Neither this nor that, yet neither not this or that – freedom without either duality or non-duality. This is, as I understand it, the core of Buddhist philosophy and what the method of training aims for.
 

As a child I knew intuitively that everything was God – but to become one with God, within the life and existence given, which of course is inseparable from God, takes a method and some effort. Coming full circle to my current situation, which, through the personal and shared suffering being experienced, is to reconnect to and explore and develop ways to dissolve the sense of ‘I’ and separation, ultimately for the benefit of others.
 

I didn’t stay with Zen long enough, before the master died, for it to have been a fully established path, but the parallel of the Christian mystics and contemplatives with Zen draws me as a path possibly relevant to many of us. I am weak now, driven down by the vestiges of long-held beliefs, attachments and emotional turmoil and fear, and this seems to be the perfect time to give myself into God’s hands – to cut the root, ignore the branches, as the Buddha said – the root being the mistaken notion of a self.
 

With endless, genuine gratitude, I so very much appreciate your contribution in these profoundly challenging and transformative times. I read and listen attentively with open heart.
 

Thank you, with love,
 

Dale