Zazen and the Internal Ocean (No End to Spiritual Experience)

When I settled in the Big Island in January of 2017, I was romantically affected by its remoteness from other inhabited lands. Using round numbers, it is 4100 miles from the Big Island to Japan, 3100 to Alaska, 2400 to San Francisco, and 2600 to Polynesia. Those miles are by air over the vast Pacific Ocean.

So surrounding the Big Island are many miles of ocean. Again, when I arrived here, the romance of that unimaginable expanse of ocean, nearly seven miles deep on average, came home to me. In time, though, my wonder over the external ocean became secondary to the thought of the internal ocean of my own being.  

To speak personally, but no doubt also for many other Daifukuji practitioners of zazen, when doing zazen I have the sense sometimes that I am an ocean that fills the universe and still expands with new inner experience. This feeling is on the periphery of my mind, never in focus. When reflecting on the internal ocean a short time ago, I thought of the words in the Christian Gospel of John, 14:12: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Putting aside how biblical commentators might interpret those words, to me they mean that zazen sessions are like launching in a vast, unexplored sea where there is always fresh and new internal experience.  There are limitless possibilities in the ocean of zazen.