This is black, and this is white, as you see. But for me, this is white and this is black [laughter]. Black signifies the absolute, and white signifies the relative. This is nighttime. This is daytime. Nighttime you cannot see anything, but daytime you will see everything in its relative sense. But absolute—you don’t see, you don’t hear, you don’t think. That is the absolute.
Photo by Robert Boni
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the photo. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 68-08-25 as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. Go to instagram.com/cuke_archives for the Instagram version.