Sublime

In the sixth century C.E., Bodhidharma, considered to be the first ancestor of the Zen lineage, put forth the four points that define Zen: Zen is a special transmission outside the scriptures, With no reliance on words and letters. A direct pointing to the human mind, And the realization of enlightenment.

A life of poverty was the Zen ideal for a monk seeking the ultimate truth of reality, and so from these negative images came the poetic ideal of a man who has transcended the need for the comforts of the physical world and has managed to find peace and harmony in the simplest of lives.

Zazen is a fundamental practice. It is about taking care of this moment with wholeheartedness. Just do it—right now, right here.

Rinzai Roku (a celebrated Zen text of the T’ang dynasty) and the teachings of Bankei, the seventeenth-century Japanese master who, for me, represents Zen at its best.

boddhisattva.

he introduced the Middle Way, a balanced approach that avoided the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.