Sōzan Shows Heidegger the Way

The clinging to roles, identities, and external validation acts as a barrier to authentic self-understanding. Heidegger called for Kehre, a radical turning. It requires confronting the truth of impermanence—what he called “being-towards-death.

The one-eyed dragon Isan spoke of isn’t mythical. It’s the clarity that arises when we stop seeing with the two eyes of duality—self and other, right and wrong. These two eyes bind us to judgment and striving. The one eye is the eye of wisdom, the eye that sees beyond. It’s the eye through which the universe looks back at you.