This self-identity is not just self-identity. It is absolutely contradictory self-identity. A candle has contradictory absolute existence, because in its center it has something which is not candle. An actual candle, if it is only wax, it is not a candle. So, for a candle to have cotton in the center of it is absolutely necessary to be a candle. And when you find a candle, that’s self-identity. When it catches fire, a candle becomes a candle.
Image by LA2 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
—cuke.com/ig for links to the source of the image. Excerpt from Shunryu Suzuki lecture 66-02-19-A as found on shunryusuzuki.com, edited by PF. These posts are also on Bluesky, Facebook and Instagram. We are continually working on improving the quality of transcriptions of Suzuki's lectures. After a new "verbatim transcript" is made, we create a minimally edited version which is more readable. See the most recently completed transcripts at shunryusuzuki.com/n.
