This talk is a commentary on the chapter “The Razor’s Edge” by Joko Beck. It distinguishes the activity of the self-centred self, which is the attempt to control and resist impermanence in order to avoid feeling emotional pain from what Joko called embeddedness in life. When we are embedded in life there is no separation and hence no problem. We allow our lives to flow. However, when we feel threatened or hurt, we are thrown out of embeddedness and back into separateness (duality). We need to join together these broken pieces to become whole again. How? By experiencing the pain, we are trying to avoid. This is walking the razor’s edge. Practice is walking this edge. But we don’t want to do this. We want to fix the problem, solve it, get rid of it.

Experiencing is the practice of waking the razors edge. The first step is to become ware of what it is we are feeling. To walk the edge is to experience the pain and realise we can endure and survive it. We have to arrive at the emotion before we can move on. “When we are experiencing nonverbally we are walking the razor’s edge – we are the present moment”. Walking the razor’s edge is what Zen practice is. “In fact the enlightened life is simply being able to walk that edge all the time”. The paradox: only in walking the razor's edge, in experiencing the fear directly, can we know what it is to have no fear”. Walking the razor’s edge is how peace is found. Experiencing the body and breath is being on the razor’s edge. How does the razor’s edge relate to enlightenment? It is enlightenment.

Keep the question with you: Right now, am I walking the razor’s edge?