Zen: It is not what you think!

"If you are thinking, you can't understand Zen. Anything that can be written in a book, anything that can be said--all this is thinking.

"But if you read with a mind that has cut off all thinking, then Zen books, sutras, and Bibles are all the truth.

"So is the barking of a dog or the crowing of a rooster. All things are teaching you at every moment, and these sounds are even better teaching than Zen books."--Seung Sahn

Rich Man, Poor Man

Once we accumulate things it is very difficult to let go of our possessions.

We appear to be rich, but our dependence on material wealth makes us poor for, as Thoreau wrote, "a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone."

Liberation

Therapy can help you manage the disease, but only the Truth can liberate you from the obsessions, compulsions, and disorders of egotism.

War

The spiritual journey is an all out war against the evolutionary forces which we inherited from our primate ancestors.

We must learn to tame the savage animal within us before it breaks out of its civilized cage without warning.

The Enemy

 In truth, humanity only has one enemy: The ego.

When we realize that we are children of the Light, we will no longer fight among ourselves. We will truly understand the meaning of the angelic words--

Glory to God in the Highest,

And on earth peace,

Good will toward Men.

Intuition

It is a common mistake to confuse true intuition with strong feeling or with an almost animal-like wariness that is evoked in the mind under certain circumstances.

Rather, an intuitive sense of what to do in any situation springs from an awareness of what Life requires of an individual at that moment. And there is only one right answer.

When our behavior is aligned with the true meaning of our lives, we can follow the Truth as it goes and we will learn to express ourselves in our daily activity. Only then we will be satisfied with all we do.

A Chinese Peasant

A Chinese peasant's best horse escaped from his barn stall and ran off. When his neighbors saw him, they told him that they were sorry that he had lost his best horse. His comment was: "I don't know whether this is good news or bad news, I only know that I have lost my best horse."

The next day, the horse returned with a bunch of wild horses running behind him, which the peasant corralled. His neighbors came to congratulate him on his good fortune. His response was: "I don't know whether this is good news or bad news, I only know that I now have several additional horses that I did not have to pay for."

The next day, the peasant's oldest son attempted to break in one of the wild horses. The horse threw him, and he broke his leg. The peasant's neighbors told him that they were sorry to hear that his oldest son had been injured. His response was: "I don't know whether this is good news or bad news, I only know that my son has broken his leg."

The next day, military officials came to conscript the young men of the village for military service. The peasant's oldest son was left behind because of his broken leg.

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Through Zen practice we learn how to accept the circumstances of our lives whether or not they are agreeable to us. We become aware that "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."