Sublime

In Japan we have the phrase shoshin, which means “beginner’s mind.” The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner’s mind.

this practice was not some exotic trip or a passing fad but a matter of life and death that required an equal commitment from us to meet him completely with our whole heart.

The heat of Master Shunryu’s heart burns away both faith and doubt leaving a withered tree in the golden wind.

Turner is now an ordained Zen monk, yet he is also still a physicist, working for a company that makes helium neon lasers.

Khotanese monk’s name was Shikshananda,

“beginner’s mind.”

When I realized that I was seeing the world as it is, that led to the feeling of kinship. Whatever I paid attention to, that seemed to be me at that moment. I’d already been everything, done everything, owned everything. I’d already been this wall and this couch. All you have to do is be you and everything comes to you. It is not a question of owne

This koan points out that if you have a problem, you might not need to expand the pool of the known. Instead it might be possible to deal with problems that seem to be insoluble without translating them into something you can already understand. Taking such a course would mean accepting and even embracing being in the dark.