I love that this is the starting point. Throw out everything! It’s a big idea. Start there! Sit down on a cushion and completely let go of your idea of me, and that, and big and small and forward and backward and front and back and up and down. Sit here at the center— I’ll talk to you about your posture. Who am I? What is this? What is this all about? . Your body is without borders. Don’t imagine yourself to be small. Don’t imagine yourself to be distinct. Don’t imagine yourself to be separate. the center of something that has limits, but “the center” being the whole thing ..read more

I really love this text. I love how Keizan lays out the foundation of the practice. Remember, these are (The original talk can be found on the  for zazen. He’s saying, . First, know who you are. Not in a personal way. Not the you that has a name. The other one. That’s the one who’s going to sit like this. That’s the one who makes this gesture of awakening ..read more

From every direction, he’s saying, implicitly, do not use zazen as a tool to accomplish something. Zazen is the end: it’s the endpoint. It’s the end expression of the practice. It’s not the metric and it’s not the means. It’s complete. It’s finished. Sit like (The original talk can be found on the  . Sit from the top of the mountain. Sit Buddha, not as a Buddha-to-be. try to notice this. I spend a lot of time thinking about this because I also spend a lot of time forgetting this. When I travel and I’m in an airport, I have three hours before anything exciting is going to happen. I sit dow ..read more

Just don’t let yourself get caught up. Just don’t look away. (The original talk can be found on the  .) There’s much more to be said about this wonderful text; I’d like to come back to it sometime. For now, I hope these have been a useful introduction. (which perhaps you’ve never thought about in your life). think about the tip of your nose, think about the edge of your hairline Ah! I’m sitting here facing a wall seriously, this idea of moving your consciousness around the body. I wouldn’t recommend dedicating your life to it, but as an experiment, I recommend trying it, sitting in t ..read more

This comes from a talk given at ; the original can be found on the and what you will get. It’s transparent. It’s obvious. You know that it’s a lie. Even if what I’m saying is true, it’s still a lie ..read more

Like most of what I write, these posts started as talks, then became something to play with on the page. You can listen to talks from Zen Nova Scotia at the Ancient Way: A Journal of Traditional Soto Zen Practice , updated weekly, now with about 150 episodes ..read more