There is nowhere to go. This is liberation. It’s very simple. Too simple. If you touch it, it’s gone. Freedom is very intimate. It’s like a secret in your heart.

We need to practice compassion every day.

Zazen is not about destroying our thoughts or doing away with our subjective points of view. It’s about how to deal with thoughts and views mindfully. In zazen, mindfulness, thoughts, and views all become simple and quiet because we are concentrated on just one thing, not many. At that time, mindfulness becomes very pure and clean, and our view

To forget the self, however, is to study the self, not to destroy the self. It is to help, enrich, and enhance others by completely going through yourself to touch the lives of others.

Forget what others say or do and attend to your practice.

It is called living in vow, aspiring to awaken each moment. To live in vow is to take care of the little details of life—like getting up in the morning. When it is time to get up, just get up.

But no matter how long we discuss the question “What should I do?” there is no conclusion. You must just be here. “Here” doesn’t mean Minneapolis or San Francisco. “Here” means right now.

Zen is everyday life—to live day by day. And day by day is today—right now, right here.

right in the middle of such discrimination, how can you settle yourself in peace and harmony? This is Zen practice.