--------------------------------------------------My body is real, but not unchanging, and my root will soon abandon it. My root is real but not unchanging, for it is destined to evolve....
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Life is real yet, while being real, life is also dependent on causes to exist. Nothing ever comes from itself: a child cannot just spring out of thin air. If something was born ‘of itself’ like this than it would have no beginning, it would not die, and it would never change. The same is true of all things, even you. Your heart has to be healthy, you need working lungs, you need blood, regular deposits of the right nutrients, and all kinds of other things. If all of them are not perfectly in place, then we get sick, and eventually die from it.

Even what you consider to be ‘The Real You’ is subject to emptiness. Your personality is made up of the causes you have made in the past and this is called karma(which is the "root"). Your birth condition is also subject to this. If you were greedy you will not have been born rich, if you were filled with defilement, how could you hope to be born beautiful? ‘You’ are ever changing and eternal and always the result of the causes you have made in the past.

• The root is no different from the soul - secretary - May 29, 2004 - 11:53 UTC