Everyday Zen: Love and Work (Plus)

There is only one teacher. What is that teacher? Life itself. And of course each one of us is a manifestation of life; we couldn’t be anything else.

There is an old koan about a monk who went to his master and said, “I’m a very angry person, and I want you to help me.” The master said, “Show me your anger.” The monk said, “Well, right now I’m not angry. I can’t show it to you.” And the master said, “Then obviously it’s not you, since sometimes it’s not even there.” Who we are has many faces, bu

Zen practice is to see through our desire to cling to our history and to reasons (thoughts) for why we are as we are, instead of working with the reality of what we are.

And of course our practice is to die slowly, step by step, gradually disidentifying with wherever we’re caught in. If we’re caught anywhere we have not died. For example, we may identify with our family. Disidentifying with one’s family doesn’t mean not to love them.

the things that go wrong in our lives are of two kinds. One kind are events outside of ourselves, and the other are things within us, such as physical illness. Both are our practice, and we handle them in the same way. We label all the thoughts that occur around them, and we experience them in our body. The process is sitting itself.

I mean that we have to give up this idea in our heads that somehow, if we could only figure it out, there’s some way to have this perfect life that is just right for us. Life is the way it is.

Suppose we decide to reprogram that to “I have self-confidence.” Neither of them will stand up very well under the pressures of life, because they involved an “I.” And this “I” is a very fragile creation-unreal, actually—and is easily befuddled. In fact there never was an “I.” The point is to see that it is empty, an illusion, which is different fr

Because there is no path our practice is to follow this no-path endlessly—and for no reward. Because no-self is everything it needs no reward: from the no-beginning it is itself complete fulfillment.

When we’re lost in thought, when we’re dreaming, what have we lost? We’ve lost reality. Our life has escaped us.