instructed, “If a thought arises, take note of it and then dismiss it. When you forget all attachments steadfastly, you will naturally become zazen itself.” Many other traditions see lightening the self as the path to inner freedom. We’ve often heard the Dalai Lama talk about “emptiness,” by which he means the sense in which our “self’—and all seeming objects in our world—actually emerge from the combination of their components. Some Christian theologians use the term kenosis for the emptying of self, where our own wants and needs diminish while our openness to the needs of others grows into
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