Zazen Notes

The classics of T’ai-Chi offer the following advice:

We should keep our thoughts on the spirit and not on the ch’i. When they are on the ch’i, then it is blocked. If there is ch’i, then there is no strength; without ch’i then essential hardness is achieved.

(“Master ...  read more

The other day, I felt moved to write as follows:

In my experience, there is no way around ascertaining one’s own necessity. As in, what do I really need, to live.

It’s possible for me to discover my necessity, in one movement of breath:

You must strive with all your might to bite through here and cut off ...  read more

I open my latest piece of writing (Shikantaza and Gautama the Buddha’s “Pleasant Way of Living”) with an excerpt from Jiryu Mark Rutschman-Byler’s “Two Shores of Zen:  An American Monk’s Japan”:

“Shikantaza not here,” he insisted in elementary English, pointing to his ...  read more