Ending the Pursuit of Happiness: A Zen Guide

Everybody knows it, but almost everybody is deluded into thinking there’s something more to learn, something hidden and esoteric that is revealed only to a special few. Only after years of searching do we find that there’s nothing more to find. Will we be relieved or disappointed? What is there to gain from practice, after all? We realize that our

Just as there is no one instrument that is the sole, true embodiment of music, there is no hierarchy of traditions or practices. Who is to say that the violin is better or worse than the piano?

When we take up meditation or go into therapy, at the most basic level, we are looking for a way to cope with the fact of impermanence, which ultimately comes down to the fact of our mortality. At first, we inevitably try to deny it, control it, or avoid it. Eventually, if we stay with a real practice of emotional honesty and awareness through the

We must pursue this fantasy until we prove to ourselves that it is truly empty. I wish I could say, “until we prove it to ourselves once and for all”—but alas, we all seem to need to prove it over and over again, as our fantasy reasserts itself in ever new guises at each turn in our life. Like the mythical monster Hydra that Hercules battled, it gr

we are all capable of eventually seeing our life as it is. If we think that insight is as rare as diamonds, it’s because we aren’t ready to face what’s already right in front of us. If we do have one of one of those rare experiences, what we see is that everything is a diamond, everything is revealing right here and now the truth about our life. It

There is no one true way to practice, no single tradition that has exclusive possession of truth, no one teacher who is the unique, authentic embodiment of the Way. When I hear of students or even teachers claiming that theirs is the one authentic way that everyone should follow, I feel as if I were meeting a musician who was telling me that everyo

It is as if we lived in a world where only diamonds could be used to put out a fire. In this alternate universe, fires are easy to start and break out everywhere, but water, which is as common there as here, won’t put them out. Only diamonds, which are just as rare as on Earth, will put out a fire. Only a very few unique individuals are capable of

What matters is whether we learn to play our instrument well or badly. That’s going to take discipline and practice, no matter how or where we do it. Maybe it’s not so important which instrument we choose, as long as we can make it ours. Likewise, there is no need to stick with an instrument to which we don’t feel very suited because we’ve heard th

after another, we may discover the joy that underlies life as it is—this fleeting, ungraspable, uncontrollable life-as-it-is.