Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshicha (1765-1827) used to say that everyone should keep a piece of paper with “for my sake the world was created” in one pocket, and a piece of paper with “I am but dust and ashes” in another. The Rabbi was expressing an existential truth: each individual being is important, but not self-important.
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to allow the ten thousand things to flow.
—Zen Master Dogen, from the Genjōkōan
