Moving in accord with circumstances, we do not act on things, but with circumstances.

how completely Suzuki Roshi worked at things, how much care he took with the details. He took care of details I didn’t even notice. He put vastly more energy into things than I ever would have. He did not cut corners. He did not decide he didn’t have time.

“I think of not-thinking” is a key teaching of our practice. Thoughts come. We do not try to exclude them. Our effort is to leave them alone as much as possible and let them go on their way.

We often don’t find our breath or our body interesting enough to bring our wholehearted attention to them—but wait until we are breathing our last breath!

Zen practice doesn’t make promises. No treats or discounts. In Zen you have to pay the full price.

Noticing our thoughts, and understanding how they determine our actions and relationships, helps us understand that we cocreate the world we live in with everyone. We cocreate our lives with others.

The thing about reality is that there’s no later, there’s no next moment when one is going to be enlightened, when one is going to understand nonbeing, where there’s no outside, no second moment—only infinite first moments arising as now.

That may be the hope of our practice, accepting what happens to us—and in us—without agitating ourselves by imagining another possibility, knowing that the present moment is a full expression of its causes and conditions.

The only way we can continue this practice is if we want to sit, maybe for no reason, and if we are interested in awakening to the deceptions and delusions of our ordinary mind, not because that is an enlightened thing to do, but because it is helpful for our lives: we get in trouble less; our relationships are more harmonious.