" You’re mistaken if you think we move from birth to death. Birth is a single moment that happens at the time of birth. It has its own past and its own future. That’s why we Buddhists say birth isn’t really birth, or appearance isn’t really appearance. Death, too, is a single moment that happens at the time of death. It also has its own past and its own future. That’s why we Buddhists say disappearance isn’t really disappearance, or death isn’t really death. "

― Brad Warner , It Came from Beyond Zen!: More Practical Advice from Dogen, Japan's Greatest Zen Master -- Vol. 2 of a Radical But Reverent Paraphrasing of Dogen's Treasury of the True Dharma Eye