True Recognition

How can you recognize a true spiritual teacher or guide?

• A true teacher will always lead you back to yourself.

• A true teacher will never allow you to transfer responsibility for your actions.

• A true teacher may offer encouragement and point out mistakes, but she will never claim to know all the answers to life's many questions.

Pure Bred

"By purity we do not mean to polish something, trying to make some impure thing pure. By purity we just mean things as they are."--Shunryu Suzuki

Through Zen practice, we purify our minds of the slag and dross of egotism. The ego is a delusion covering our true nature. The goal of practice is not to reform the ego, but to realize our true self.

There was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy from his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing up to maturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he lived. One of his father's ministers having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and he knew himself to be a prince. —Quoted by Henry David Thoreau in Walden

A Herculean Task

Easy is the way down to the Underworld:

by night and by day dark Hades' door stands open;

but to retrace one's steps and to make a way out

to the upper air, that's the task, that is the labor.¹

That is Zen practice.




¹Virgil in The Aeneid [Book 6]

Boorish Behavior

"Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine."--Shunryu Suzuki

The purpose of Zen practice is to discover the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Most of us are bored stiff. This truth may account for the glitter, glitz, and glamor of American society. We need to be entertained in order to distract us from what we perceive to be an empty existence.

But through zazen practice, we discover a reality that is always new and always phenomenal.

Christ hinted at this truth when he told His disciples, "See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these." (Matthew 6:28-29)

Let Them Eat Cake

You cannot eat a recipe. The great religious traditions are like so many recipes.

To read a recipe and to believe that it is a good recipe ultimately will not help us. Of course, we may start with a recipe that looks promising, but we must always be prepared to make the necessary adjustments.

By much experimentation and practice, we have to find out for ourselves how to realize enlightenment in our own lives.

Only then can you have your cake and eat it too.

A Silent Observation

"The purpose of my talk is not to give you some intellectual understanding, but just to express my appreciation of our Zen practice."--Shunryu Suzuki

Zen Master Suzuki does not answer the question, "What is Zen practice?" The purpose of his talk is to encourage us to find out for ourselves.

Careful observation of the world and of ourselves is Zen practice.

A Questionable Practice

Zen Master Suzuki recalls a small child who was watching him practice zazen. She told him, "I can do that," and quickly folded her legs into the lotus position. Then the little girl asked, "Now what, now what?"

Zen Master Suzuki did not know how to answer her.

There is no answer to that question because we must find out for ourselves how to practice.

A Mad Pursuit

Child, what happened?

When did the madness descend upon thy innocent and serene mind?

Now, no choice, but manhood to pursue;

And make right again a world lost to desire.