Without A Yardstick

When you just sit down, real peace immediately appears. Before any object called "peace" appears, peace appears. So there is no room to even discuss peace. If you truly want peace, be peace, right now. Peace is not simply about keeping away from weapons. Real peace is to be peace now -- immediately -- in this moment.

People naturally sense this. Nevertheless, we try to make peace fit with our yardstick. Then when we can’t seem to find peace, we get confused and frustrated. If we truly want peace, we must stop trying to measure it.

If we take hold of something that has a particular form, saying, "Yes, this is it! This is the truth!" we have then made Truth merely an idea. Soon we begin to discuss it and weigh it. But no matter how long we discuss such things, we will never find solutions to any of our questions. In time we will discover our idea doesn’t always work. It’s just relative.

Our problem is that we believe our relative truths are Absolute. This is why we are always fighting each other. We always try to get everything into our hands. We ignore the fact that whatever we can get in our hands is only what we have been able to measure by our yardstick. You can't possess Absolute as a form; you can't hold it in your hand. It is before any form appears.

--Dainin Katagiri