{"id":536,"date":"2008-07-27T08:25:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-27T08:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2008\/07\/why-do-you-practice-zazen\/"},"modified":"2008-07-27T08:25:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-27T08:25:00","slug":"why-do-you-practice-zazen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2008\/07\/why-do-you-practice-zazen.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Do You Practice Zazen?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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An old and dear friend who started Zen practice by attending the first couple training periods at Tassajara a thousand years ago came over for dinner last night and we hung out on my deck and talked.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The conversation turned eventually to Zen, as it usually does. I\u2019ll try to relay a bit of it here as accurately as I can.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
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He asked me, \u201cDo you still love zazen like you used to?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cWell \u2026 not every day or anything, but some days.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cWhy do you still do it?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cWhen I get up in the morning and sit, there is a sense of lining up with life. How about you?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cI\u2019ve had an intermittent practice for many years. Several years of regular sitting and then periods of not sitting at all. Recently I realized that through the years, sitting or not, I\u2019ve carried this idea that if I sat the world and my mind would be \u2018right\u2019 and if I didn\u2019t sit, then the world and my mind seemed \u2018wrong.\u2019<\/span><\/div>\n
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\u201cI appreciated for the first time how that was messed up. The world and my mind don\u2019t get \u2018right\u2019 by zazen and don\u2019t get \u2018wrong\u2019 by no zazen.<\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen I\u2019m clear about that, not using zazen to make the world right, I can really sit. Or not.\u201d
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How about you, blog reader. Why do you sit? Or not?<\/span><\/div>\n
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An old and dear friend who started Zen practice by attending the first couple training periods at Tassajara a thousand years ago came over for dinner last night and we hung out on my deck and talked. The conversation turned eventually to Zen, as it usually does. I\u2019ll try to relay a bit of it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Do You Practice Zazen?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An old and dear friend who started Zen practice by attending the first couple training periods at Tassajara a thousand years ago came over for dinner last\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2008\/07\/why-do-you-practice-zazen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Do You Practice Zazen?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An old and dear friend who started Zen practice by attending the first couple training periods at Tassajara a thousand years ago came over for dinner last\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2008\/07\/why-do-you-practice-zazen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Wild Fox Zen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dosho.port\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-27T08:25:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/tbn0.google.com\/images?q=tbn:YBTmCvJ-qc3crM:http:\/\/www.cedarseed.com\/fire\/zazen.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dosho Port\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dosho Port\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2008\/07\/why-do-you-practice-zazen.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2008\/07\/why-do-you-practice-zazen.html\",\"name\":\"Why Do You Practice Zazen?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-07-27T08:25:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-07-27T08:25:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/#\/schema\/person\/45224391b7690e99673782337bd0eabd\"},\"description\":\"An old and dear friend who started Zen practice by attending the first couple training periods at Tassajara a thousand years ago came over for dinner last\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2008\/07\/why-do-you-practice-zazen.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2008\/07\/why-do-you-practice-zazen.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/2008\/07\/why-do-you-practice-zazen.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why Do You Practice Zazen?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/\",\"name\":\"Wild Fox Zen\",\"description\":\"Living the Dream\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/#\/schema\/person\/45224391b7690e99673782337bd0eabd\",\"name\":\"Dosho Port\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/wildfoxzen\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7b9712e98924dea6c08d55890403352f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/7b9712e98924dea6c08d55890403352f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dosho Port\"},\"description\":\"Dosho Port began practicing Zen in 1977 and now co-teachers with his wife, Tetsugan Zummach, with the Vine of Obstacles Zen. 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