Zen tings

The Tibetan teacher Kalu Rinpoche puts it this way: You live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality, but you do not know this. When you understand this, you will see that you are nothing, and being nothing you are everything. That is all. Healing comes in touching this realm of nonseparation.

But when your practice deepens and it begins to dawn on you that all your thoughts are just thoughts, even that most basic of thoughts, the idea that your thoughts are generated by something called “self,” becomes questionable and finally dissolves away.

Buddhism is about letting people know they do not need to follow any authority. If you think you need an authority figure, go somewhere else.

In essence, Zen is the art of living. All the teachings and practices of Zen are aimed at helping you live more wisely, more compassionately, and more fully. A Zen master has become adept at simply living her life, but she is not so much a master of her life as she is a master of the art of Zen study and practice.

The goal of Zen is to awaken to life as it is, rather than stay in the comparative dream world of our ideas about it.

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.

If you think Zen is something lofty and esoteric, the master will give you a shout or slap for an answer. If you think it is abstract, you’ll be told it’s three pounds of flax or the oak tree in the garden. If you think it is beyond words and abstractions, the master may quote the sutras or a poem by Han Shan. If you think Zen is nothing but our ev

Zen is about an active life, an involved life. When we know our minds well and the emotions that our thinking creates, we tend to see better what our lives are about and what needs to be done, which is generally just the next task under our nose. Zen is about a life of action, not a life of passively doing nothing. But our actions must be based on