Way-Seeking Mind

When we come to Zen practice we are answering the call of the Way-seeking mind. The mind that seeks the Way knows what is essential, what it is to be free to be true to what is. Honoring what our life brings our way and responding to it with wholehearted and clear...

The Practice of Satisfaction

What do we mean by ‘Presence’? In one sense we are always present, there is nothing outside this present moment. Right? This ‘presence’ is all there is. And yet we have the experience of being present and the experience of not being present. It is like night and day....

Paths

‘What is my true path?’ A simple zen answer might be, ‘Well, the one you’re on’. The subsequent exchange follows quite rationally: ‘but where does it go??’; ‘well, walk it and find out’. Where do decisions come from? Do we rightly bear responsibility for making them,...

Dreaming

Hostility, competition, love, furniture, money, narrative, excitement all mark the dreaming of this life. There’s always a trail that we are following in a dream. It’s real, it’s vivid, it’s saturated with emotion and meaning. It doesn’t have to make sense in a usual...

Making Mistakes

How do we know when we’ve made a mistake? Is a mistake something we did in the past, or a consequence we expect to meet us in the future? What if there is nothing within us – nothing at all – endowed with the ability to prevent our making mistakes in the...