The Buddha’s great discovery can be realized in this life.
The Buddha’s great discovery is extraordinarily subtle and powerful.
Zazen and Buddha’s enlightenment are in intimate relationship. Wholehearted zazen is a necessary condition for its rediscovery.
A necessary condition for realized zazen practice is that it is undertaken with the intimate guidance of someone who has made this discovery.
A necessary condition to become a “zazen person who without fail drops off body and mind” is to do years of busting-your-ass zazen – and yet years of zazen by themselves are insufficient.
Zazen done as a means to an end is not the most effective practice.
The view that shikantaza and koan are two distinct practices does not facilitate practicing enlightenment.
How we think about our practice and how we think in our practice powerfully influences its efficaciousness for realizing the subtle truth – and yet thinking itself is certainly insufficient.
Such thinking includes the renunciation of upside-down views, especially seeing the emotional patterns to which we cling for what they really are.
One way to refine our lives and the lives of the many beings – without moving a speck of dust or destroying a single form – is through wholehearted zazen and careful study of the words of the ancient Zen masters, through koan and intimate study.
To be a zen practitioner is to be a servant on the ship of life. And we’re all on that same and one big boat. Therefore, if you want to practice enlightenment, show up, pay attention in order to see what requires attention, and give it.
The most important thing: when knocked down by the myriad vicissitudes of this bouncing life on the one big ocean, get back up.
Wild Fox Zen
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In