Zensho W. Kopp is one of the most important spiritual masters of the present. His holistic perspective of East-West mysticism opens up a contemporary path to spiritual realisation for the spiritual seeker.
He is the direct Dharma successor to Zen Master Soji Enku (1908-1977) and the author of various Zen books. Zensho leads the Tao Chan Zen Center in Wiesbaden, Germany and instructs a large group of students.
Translation © 2012 by John Kitching
Original title “Worte eines Erwachten”
Published by Schirner Verlag, Darmstadt 2008
Producer and publisher: BoD – Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt
Cover motive: painting by Zensho W. Kopp
Cover design: Michel Schmidt
Typesetting: Torsten Zander
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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ISBN: 978-3-8482-5067-7
This little book is meant as a constant everyday companion, to help us live in the present moment of Now and to find our way back to our original true being.
The book has no beginning, no middle and no end and therefore, it is unimportant where we start to read. Wherever we open it we encounter sayings of enlightened clarity and timeless wisdom, which touch us at our most deepest. Zensho’s words are simple, and at the same time profound. They come directly from the heart, from the rich treasure of his own experience.
We recommend the reader to immerse himself completely in the aphorisms of this enlightened master. And when he reads this book again and again, his understanding of it will reach new, higher levels. Between the lines, he will read that which is beyond all words, for he will be coming ever closer to the reality of his true being.
Wiesbaden, January 2008
Tao Chan Zen Center The editors
Everything that has a beginning is subject to the laws of impermanence simply because it has a beginning.
Thus, human life too undergoes the process of birth, aging, sickness, pain and death. It is subject to the continual process of change: coming into being and passing away, coming into being and passing away.
And so we start to ask ourselves: Is that really all there is? Surely somewhere there must be something lasting? And just this alone; our desire for stability, bliss, and security is a constant indication of the presence of a higher reality.
It is this inner certainty, this inner knowledge imparted to us of our immortal divine nature.
The greater our awareness of the impermanence of all being, the more this brings forth in us the desire for liberation. This desire can then become so intensive that it no longer leaves room for any other desire.
In Indian tradition we hear of the student who, having just had his head plunged into the Ganges by his master is then asked what he was thinking of under water and was barely able to reply with the words, “air, air”.
Thereupon the master said, “As long as your longing for God is not as great as your longing for air was just now under water, you will never experience God.”
Spiritual desire is a calling of the Eternal; a longing from within the depths of the heart. It is a calling of the soul for the Divine, with the willingness to surrender oneself.
Complete surrender means nothing other than devoting everything to the Divine, to lay forth everything one is and has and to insist on nothing, whether it be fond ideas, wishes and habits, or anything else besides.
To surrender to the divine means to renounce one’s own self-made, ego-controlled limitations, and to permit the all-powerful essence of the One Mind to take possession of us.
The greater the intensity of the longing, the greater the surrender. Yet without this longing, we will never be capable of that all-consuming love which reaches its zenith in an absolute surrender to the Divine.
Most of a person’s life is plagued by a specific or undefined desire for this or that, all for the sake of grasping a short moment of fleeting happiness. People have the tendency of confusing happiness with pleasure, without realising that pleasure is just an illusion, a shadow of happiness.
Most people spend their whole lives in this delusion, constantly on the lookout for new pleasures. Yet everything is fleeting and cannot bring us lasting, true happiness.
Consequently, true happiness can only be found in the Everlasting; only in that which is independent of space and time.
Transformation in the sense of Tantra means consciously and heedfully entering into what you are doing at the present moment so that you become completely one with it.
The Tantric way of transformation, the way of transforming energy is thus about using your sexual energy and learning how to turn it into spiritual energy.
Your attention should be undivided during sexual union. Forget yourselves, totally immerse yourselves in the sensual experience, for at this moment nothing else is important, whatever it may be.
Be entirely present and forget that a world exists beyond the two of you. Surrender yourselves completely and dissolve into each other.
The experience of bliss in the average sexual union is, if present at all, disappointingly brief and often limited to a short moment of orgasm.