What is Zen?​

 

Good question.

 

With patience, curiosity, and ongoing zazen (seated meditation), you might begin to notice how the need for tidy answers falls away. You might notice how stillness has a fondness for drawing near and how each person, place, and moment has its own completeness and beauty. 

In addition to the dynamic practice of zazen, the Zen tradition engages with scraps of ancient text called koans that can help reveal a great spaciousness of heart and mind. Handed down from teacher to student over the centuries, koans are well-worn, pliable, and scrappy. And they have an uncanny ability to speak directly to your life, here and now in the 21st century.

Here's one: What is your original face, the one before your parents were born?

In sitting with a koan, a kinship develops. You may discover the koan joining you on a hike or while washing the dishes. And at some point the seemingly paradoxical quality of the koan begins to dissolve. Oh, this is my original face! 

Koans offer a radical proposition: there is a way of being in this world that is expansive, intuitive, grounded, and creative—and it's available right now. The rich not-knowing at the heart of koan investigation is the same not-knowing of the artist or the first-time parent. And this openness and freshness can bloom in all precincts of your life.

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As you gain freedom from narrow certainties and old habits of mind, you find allies and guides wherever you turn. Is there any place more cosmic than right here?

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​Bamboo shadows sweep the stairs

but no dust is stirred;

moonlight reaches the bottom of the pond

but no trace is left in the water.  

—Zenrin-kushū, 1688​