B4/92 Shoji

生死

shoji

Life-and-Death

Sho means “life” and ji means “death,” so shoji means “life and death.” We have the words “life” and “death,” but Master Dogen did not recommend us to understand intellectually what our life and death are. He found value in our real day-to-day life itself. So in this chapter Master Dogen explained life-and-death as the real momentary state of our daily life in which life and death are combined.