Sublime

But enlightenment, as the monk says, isn’t a point where everything stops and you’ve made it, forever surrounded by a halo of bliss. No, it is something alive, something that pushes you on every day, that calls you to return, whether you are a Daigyoman Ajari on Mount Hiei or a data-management assistant in an office in Hounslow

The renowned monk Hakuin had a favorite expression that meditation in the midst of activity was far better than meditation in stillness.

far as I know he practiced za-zen, or formal sitting meditation, only occasionally, as I do myself, when the mood is on me. I prefer the more active Zen of walking meditation, archery, t’ai-chi exercises, mantra-chanting, practicing Chinese calligraphy, tea ceremony, swimming, and cooking. Too much za-zen is apt to turn one into a stone Buddha. In

There is a Zen expression: “At first the mountains are mountains and streams are streams. Then the mountains are not mountains and streams are not streams. But in the end, mountains are mountains again and streams are streams again.”