My teacher Taiun-Elliston-Roshi some times speaks about our personal and social being. By the way, when we purposely talk about dichotomies, we call this "skillful-means." This is a teaching method aimed at helping a student see into the great meaning of birth and death.

When we focus on the personal (me) we see inside-out. When we interact with others we have the opportunity to see outside-in. In Zen, we say there is neither inside nor outside. This assumption implies that the act of circumscribing the universe in ways that impose illusionary barriers (attachments) creates Dukkha.

I have finished one and am in the middle of another book, both addressing boundary formation. One, The Twisted Tree of Life, addressed pigeon-holing animals and plants as either-or. The current book, The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum, asks what lies beyond the known.

If what we call the universe is "all." We ponder and conjure on the social level to allow for maps and guidelines and definitions as helpers. Because they are useful to us/me up to the point where they are not. We then become open more to possibilities, a most difficult awakening indeed affects our belief and the collective beliefs of others. Therefore being aware/awake in the "real" circumstances of the Universe is beyond what we think we know, it is slipping or jumping into experiencing what we call the fluidity of here and how,,,

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108bows for our sangha being a "Sangha" while I've been away.

Sangaku