The Ground Beneath You Is the Temple
Right now, what is before your eyes — there is no other teaching to be found apart from this.
Am I always seeking enlightenment and peace "somewhere other than here and now"?
📝Reflection
Linji stressed it again and again: the Way is not somewhere apart from this, right before your eyes now. We always believe real life lies in some other time and place — after retirement, after the move, once this project ends. So this present moment becomes a perpetual waiting room for the next. Linji shatters that postponement. Right now, this ordinary view before you is the whole of it. Enlightenment does not arrive in a special future; it lies in living this moment wholly. To say there is no other teaching to find is not despair but release — for there is nothing more to seek; it is already all here. The ground beneath your feet is itself the temple: that is the one place Linji pointed to all his life.
🌱Apply It Today
When the thought "I'll really live once this is over" arises today, pause and look wholly at one thing before you — sunlight, a cup of tea, someone's face. Real life is not after that, but right there.
This verse is read as universal humanistic wisdom, not religion — no faith is promoted, and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.
