« Break the Momentum of Causality »

Zen Master Hakuin once wrote: "Even those who have sat zazen only once will see all karma erased." How can this be, you ask. Indeed, how can just one moment of nonduality erase all karma? I don't really know but here's what I think: "A moment of mindful presence breaks up the flow of conditioned causality."

Let me explain this again (to myself): karma is causality, karma is when the past conditions the present; when we live on autopilot, unconsciously, we are determined by this past, we are living out our karma; but when we enter zazen, we finally break the chain of unconscious cause-and-effect...

Let me show this to you.

Watch: here's your life...

cause-and-effect-and-cause-and-effect-and-cause-and-effect...

here's your life after one session of zazen:

cause-and-effect-and-cause-and-effect-and-cause-and-effect-ZAZEN-cause-and-effect-and-cause-and-effect-and-cause-and-effect...

See the difference?

There was a flow of unconscious, unexamined causality and then BAM! zazen breaks this chain of karma.

Understand: a moment of presence is a moment of freedom from your own historical determinism. So is this particular pattern-break. Congratulations!

What difference does this pattern-break make?  What's the point of breaking this chain of causality?  Why waste time in a "sit"?

- Huge difference!  One "sit," one pattern-break allows you to start from a place of choice rather than keep suffering from the momentum of [samsaric] causality.