Sublime

The whole essence of Zen consists in walking along the razor’s edge of Now — to be so utterly, so completely present that no problem, no suffering, nothing that is not who you are in your essence, can survive in you. In the Now, in the absence of time, all your problems dissolve. Suffering needs time; it cannot survive in the Now.

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

All in all, it would seem that hsin means the totality of our psychic functioning, and, more specifically, the center of that functioning, which is associated with the central point of the upper body. The Japanese form of the word, kokoro, is used with even more subtleties of meaning, but for the present it is enough to realize that in translating

What does it mean to make total effort with no gaining idea? Notice that any gaining idea implies that just this is not complete as it is.

“It’s a Zen thing. Very handy term. In Zen, no one is interested in spiritual growth. No one is interested in self-exploration or self-realization. They’re not trying to become better people or happier people. They’re not following a spiritual path, they’re following a wake-the-hell-up path. They’re completely focused on the hot and narrow pursuit

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