Episode Details

Zen Roshi Lola McDowell Lee, opens by recounting the classic Zen koan of Master Dogo and his disciple Zengen. When visiting a deceased parishioner, Zengen asks if the person is alive or dead, to which Dogo refuses to answer either way. Even after Dogo’s passing, another master, Sakeso, repeats this refusal, telling Zengen, "No saying whatever".

The story illustrates that life and death are not distinct realities, but two doors to the exact same cosmic secret. They are experiences to be lived through directly rather than intellectual problems to be solved.

The human mind constantly seeks to placate itself with borrowed concepts and comfortable conclusions, missing the fundamental truth of existence. She cites Sri Ramakrishna’s metaphor of a festival crowd debating the depth of the ocean. While they argue, a man made of salt jumps into the water to discover the truth directly, dissolving in the process.

Lola equates humans to this salt man; we must be willing to jump into the unknown and die daily, allowing our conditioned personalities to dissolve into the greater awareness.

She notes that individuals satisfy themselves with some spiritual terminology, like karma, using it as a pacifier to explain things away and avoid facing the genuine, sometimes frightening mystery of life. Real understanding requires us to abandon the safety of the shore.

She explains that the mechanics of living and dying are intimately connected to the flow of the human energy field. Lee explains that at birth, energy ripples outward, expanding into the world. In contrast, during a natural death or deep meditation, this energy field gradually compacts, subsiding and returning inward to its center to form concentrated light.

When one dies, the physical body is a temporary mechanism left behind outside the temple, while unconditioned awareness effortlessly moves through the invisible door of death. Death is not an absolute end, but a transition of awareness.

Lola discusses the treacherous nature of language and dualistic thinking. Relying on labels separates the thinker from reality, pushing awareness away through continuous subject-object categorization.

She suggests "a-thinking" (the a being like a in amoral, or asymmetric, meaning non-. A-thinking is a wordless, subjective dwelling in non-articulated awareness. The answers to the profound mysteries of existence are found prior to the formation of words, hidden in the translucent darkness within.

Lola explains that the words and stories are merely fingers pointing at the truth, and mistaking the finger for the reality it points to is a tragic error in the spiritual journey.

June 8, 1986