Everyday Zen: Love and Work (Plus)

Let’s look at the sitting process itself. What we need to do is to be with what’s happening right now. You don’t have to believe me; you can experiment for yourself. When I am drifting away from the present, what I do is listen to the traffic. I make sure there’s nothing I miss. Nothing. I just really listen. And that’s just as good as a koan, beca

Even when we go to our Zen teacher we hear only what we want to hear. Being open to a teacher means not just hearing what you want to hear, but hearing the whole thing. And the teacher’s not there simply to be nice to you.

A fourth obstacle is having little understanding of the magnitude of the task that we have embarked upon. The task is not impossible, it’s not too difficult; but it is unending.

becoming aware of everything that enters our life (whether internal or external), our life begins to transform. And we gain strength and insight and even live at times in the enlightened state, which simply means experiencing life as it is.

So I want you to appreciate your sitting and appreciate your

Of course for this person there are still boundaries, limitations, so there is some place where that integration fails. Nonetheless that’s what you might call mind/body integration, wonderful and rare. Most of us are in some of the stages leading up to that, which means we cannot own even our own bodies completely. Any tension in the body means tha

the joy of our life is just in totally doing and just bearing what must be borne, in just doing what has to be done. It’s not even what has to be done; it’s there to be done so we do it.

All we can say is, “We are this very moment.” And because there’s no way of measuring it, defining it, pinning it down, even seeing what it is, it’s immeasurable, boundless, infinite. It’s what we are.

each moment is exactly what each moment is. Our practice, our aspiration, is to be that moment and let it be what it is. If you are afraid, just be fear, and right there you are fearless.