Every weekday morning after our morning zazen the small group of us have tea around the kitchen table at the Zen center. The guiding teacher (usually Soten) offers a prompt for discussion. This past Monday I offered the prompt, “If you were to substitute another word for the word ‘practice’ what would it be?” Another way to ask this would be, ‘What are we doing when we engage in Zen Practice?’
Some of the words we came up with were ‘Training’, ‘Dissolving’, ‘Life’ and ‘Honesty’. When we practice, we are training our minds, we are dissolving into what is, we are simply being life, we are sitting in/as naked honesty. What would you say? What is this thing you call practice? What is your experience like when you practice? What is it like when you don’t practice? How is it different from your everyday mode of operation? Is it different?
Another word I came up with when contemplating this question was ‘love.’ When we engage in Zen practice, we are loving what is. This upcoming week we will be doing our Divine Abode Sesshin. Everyone is welcome to join for the morning and evening sessions without registering and full/part time registration is also still open. Sesshin is a deep dive into practice. During this sesshin we will intentionally uncover and cultivate the boundless qualities of the heart. The Four Divine Abodes are said to be Compassion, Kindness, Sympathetic Joy, and Equanimity. Yet there are many more…Gratitude, Forgiveness, Appreciation, Ease, Happiness, Love… We can pick any one of these beautiful heart qualities and expand it, let it expand us. We can make it our abode, our home, the place where we naturally abide; a perfect home from which we can truly enjoy this precious life. Which of these qualities do you want to cultivate? Please start today. What we practice we become.
Yours in the Dhama,
Shinei