What Truly Remains?

Treeleaf member Aswini posted some of my blog post on the forum and equated it to his own life. I was interested to see what the responses would be. Jundo posted a whopper of a question in response. One that I’ll be meditating on for what I imagine to be a long time.

The question is…

What truly remains when we drop all thought of “success”, “failure”, “doing”, “not doing”, “tangled”, “untangled”, “up” or “down”????

We’ll see how it goes? (or does it go?, if it does, where does it go?, or does it go nowhere at all? Or is there no IT to begin with, which means that IT can’t go anywhere? I’ve started already)

The Dharma of Each Other

As a Buddhist teacher, author and founder of the Upaya Zen Centre, Roshi Joan Halifax has dedicated her life to service.  Christopher Mccann listens to her stories.

Photo by: Meridel Rubenstein

I am sitting with Roshi Joan Halifax. She is propped up on pillows, her eyes steady and deep despite the pain in her body. She has slipped on a wet bathroom floor and broken her hip in four different places. She emerged from surgery with a certain equanimity, coming back to do her work in the world with the new addition of a steel plate and screws in her hip.

It’s been close to two years since we’ve seen each other, and we are happy and easy in each other’s presence. I have brought her a picture of her dog, Dominga, which she raised to her forehead like a picture of a saint before placing it on the table beside her. After spending thirty hours strapped to a gurney in an emergency room, she was moved to a private room, where we are sitting when she tells me this story:

“Imagine you’re flying in an airplane, with the wide, shimmering expanse of the sea below you. You rest comfortably in your seat, watching sunlight glint off the waves.

“Out the window you see a smaller plane come into view, flying parallel to yours and just below. There is a moment’s pause, and then the smaller plane begins to throttle back and forth, dipping and diving. And then suddenly, from the side of the plane hidden from your view, a man falls out and starts hurtling, end over end, toward the sea.

“You gasp, pressing your face closer to the glass, feeling a flash of fear course through your body. Entering into the man’s fall with him, you feel it from his body, see the ocean rushing toward you through his terrified eyes. Then with a violent splash the man plunges headfirst into the water.

“And you are still strapped in your seat, hundreds of feet above him, hardly able to breathe.”

I lean forward in my chair toward her. Where is this story going? It’s shocking and strange to me to imagine a man falling to his death, but then Roshi Joan reveals one vital detail.

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Cynicism and truth, part 1

I look forward to my weekly podcasts with The ID project – Ethan Nicturne’s unique and modern interpretation of Buddhism is educational, honest, and entertaining. This week the topic was Cynicism and the 3 pillars of zen. As a religious refugee, his talk hit upon a lot of thoughts I’ve had lately and he put it so eloquently: (Keep in mind that he was speaking – not writing!)

“One of the things that I’ve always like about the Buddhist tradition is that you are required to be skeptical. Now that’s a strong statement. I did not just say it’s unlike some other spiritual traditions because they let you ask questions, or if you’re a somewhat disbelieving son of a bitch like myself they’ll allow you to stay in the room, right – but they really want you to come around to their perspective. The Buddhist tradition is a method of investigation and inquiry that requires disbelief to function. Do you see the difference? It’s different than saying if you have any questions, sure, and we’ll enlighten you, and then eventually you’ll get it, and become a Buddhist and we’ll humor you through that process. You need to not believe – to get anything out of this. So that really fascinated me, Because of that I think it’s the perfect method of life inquiry for our post-modern, democratic society. “

Ethan hits it on the head for me. This method of inquiry is so refreshing because it is ego-less in it’s approach. We get to approach the teachings with a skeptical mind, and through application we see if they actually work. The Buddhist teachers are the first to say, “hey, if it doesn’t work, don’t use it. No problem.” This way of approaching spiritual life is all about truth, not about belief. The tradition is about using what literally works, not about defending a set of beliefs. There is nobody trying to convert anybody. The basic premise of the tradition is to sit, be still and pay attention. If you pay attention, truth will be illuminated. Religion goes the opposite way and says, “Here’s a list of things that are true – live this way. Take this list and through belief that these things are true, they’ll be true. If you want to ask God yourself – good! Ask him. But if you get a different answer than we believe in, just keep asking until you get the right answer.” I know this is provocative to say, but it seems to me that religion asks us to believe in things with no burden of proof. This later approach is similar to using the scientific method in reverse – taking an assumption and finding the proof to justify the belief. In the Buddhist tradition, it’s the other way around. It’s about keeping a completely fearless, open mind and noticing what pieces of truth I can find along the path. The burden of proof is on the teaching itself – the awareness of reality, rather than on the practitioner or the rigid belief. It’s so beautifully said in my favorite quote by Thich Nhat Hanh: “Your own life is the instrument with which we experiment with the truth.”

Greenfrog sent me the following story while back, knowing it would make me smile.

August 31, 2008
Tricycle’s Daily Dharma
What Happens to Most Pieces of Truth
One day Mara, the Buddhist god of ignorance and evil, was traveling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara’s attendants asked what that was and Mara replied, “A piece of truth.” “Doesn’t this bother you when someone finds a piece of the truth, O evil one?” his attendants asked. “No,” Mara replied. “Right after this they usually make a belief out of it.”
-Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, in Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Interestingly enough, faith is a big part of Buddhism. I’ll continue this post and jump into the 3 pillars and how contemplative study actually illuminates the truths within religion. In the meantime, take a listen to Ethan’s dharma talk – it’s a good one. (It’s on I-tunes under ID Project)

Zen Meditation Really Does Clear the Mind

Science confirms what Zennists have known all along!

Study (Emory University): Zen Meditation Really Does Clear the Mind

By Charles Q. Choi, Special to LiveScience
02 September 2008

The seemingly nonsensical Zen practice of “thinking about not thinking” could help free the mind of distractions, new brain scans reveal.

This suggests Zen meditation could help treat attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (so-called ADD or ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorder, major depression and other disorders marked by distracting thoughts.

In the last decade, there has been a resurgence of scientific research into meditation, due in part to the wide availability and increasing sophistication of brain-scanning techniques. For instance, scientists recently found that months of intense training in meditation can sharpen a person’s brain enough to help them notice details they might otherwise miss.

“It is important that this type of research be conducted with high scientific standards because it carries a long-standing stigma — perhaps well-deserved? — of being wishy-washy,” said researcher Giuseppe Pagnoni, a neuroscientist at Emory University in Atlanta. “Constructive skepticism should always be welcomed as a great sparring partner.”

Pagnoni and his colleagues investigated Zen meditation, which Pagnoni himself has practiced while studying for his doctorate in Italy.

The Zen of Zen

Zen meditation vigorously discourages mental withdrawal from the world and dreaminess, and instead asks one to keep fully aware with a vigilant attitude. It typically asks one to silently focus on breathing and one’s posture with eyes open in a quiet place and to calmly dismiss any thoughts as they pop up, essentially “thinking nothing.” One can over time learn how to keep one’s mind from wandering, become aware of otherwise unconscious behaviors and preconceived notions and hopefully gain insights into oneself, others and the world.

To see what effects Zen meditation might have on the brain, scientists compared 12 people from the Atlanta area with more than three years of daily practice in Zen meditation with 12 novices who had never practiced meditation.

The researchers “had to screen — and discard — a number of colorful characters who during the interview declared that they were meditating regularly by screaming in a towel while stomping their feet on the ground, or that they were communicating frequently with beings of other planets,” Pagnoni recalled. “Such are the unexpected joys of this research!”

As the volunteers had their brains scanned, they were asked to focus on their breathing. Every once in a while, they had to distinguish a real word from a nonsense word displayed at random times on a computer screen and, having done that, promptly try and focus on their breathing again.

Their scans revealed that Zen training led to different activity in a set of brain regions known as the “default network,” which is linked with spontaneous bursts of thought and wandering minds. After volunteers experienced in Zen were distracted by the computer, their brains returned faster to how they were before the interruption than novice brains did. This effect was especially striking in the angular gyrus, a brain region important for processing language.

“The regular practice of meditation may enhance the capacity to limit the influence of distracting thoughts,” Pagnoni said.

Posturing the findings

“What I find really interesting in this approach is that it stands to regulate the mind by regulating the body — posture, breathing,” Pagnoni said. The neural circuits for controlling posture are quite distinct from those responsible for higher brain functions, “and perhaps shifting one’s attention to posture or breathing facilitates a temporary quelling of mental chatter.”

By teaching people how to clear their minds of interruptions, Zen meditation could help disorders marked by distracting thoughts, Pagnoni said.

“There is already some evidence that a behavioral therapy incorporating elements of mindfulness training derived from meditation can be beneficial in reducing relapses in major depression,” Pagnoni noted.

Pagnoni added that the default mode network might be especially vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease.

“Although we enter the field of wild speculations here, could the practice of meditation, by providing regular intervals of respite in the incessant working of the default network, have — if mildly — protective effects for Alzheimer disease?” he conjectured.

Pagnoni noted one potential failing of the study was that the volunteers experienced in Zen meditation might have some innate capacity for controlling their thoughts, explaining the differences seen. Ideally, scientists could track novices as they grow experienced in Zen meditation, to see if their brains change or not, he said.

The research, funded by a National Institutes of Health grant, is detailed online Sept. 3 in the journal PLoS ONE.

http://www.livescience.com/health/080902-zen-meditation.html

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The Way of Unlearning

I read this post awhile ago on the blog “The Zennist” (not the dark zen newsletter by same name), and just came back to it tonight. I really feel that this touches on the point that I’m at right now. I need to unlearn alot of things in order to allow my mind to be open to many of the new concepts I’ve been studying and learning when it comes to Zen and Buddhism in general. My teacup is full so to speak, and I need to empty it.

Here’s a copy of the post…

Nothing Holy: A Zen Primer

Nothing Holy: A Zen Primer
By Norman Fischer

Most of us associate Zen with black robes and rock gardens, but do we really know what it is? Norman Fischer takes us through the principles and practices of the major schools of Zen.

1. A Zen Wave

Like ocean waters, intellectual currents are always in motion. They churn up organic matter from below, creating and extending powerful nutritional mixtures. When groups of people at a particular historical moment begin to experience the world in a particular way, naturally they meet and talk, ponder, read and write. They are open to diverse influences. Eventually the energy of their discourse crests and breaks like a sudden wave, and soon people around them find themselves affected. So cultures mix, dissolve and change.

In this way, a Zen wave broke on North American shores in the middle of the twentieth century. It probably didn’t begin as a Zen wave at all, but rather as a reflex to the unprecedented violence the first part of the century had seen. After two devastating world wars, small groups of people here and there in the West were beginning to realize, as if coming out of a daze, that the modernist culture they had depended on to humanize and liberalize the planet wasn’t doing that at all. Instead it was bringing large-scale suffering and dehumanization. What was the alternative?

In the early 1950’s, D.T. Suzuki, the great Japanese Zen scholar and practitioner, arrived at Columbia University in New York to teach some classes on Zen. Suzuki was a magnet for the yearning that was at that time still underground. The people who met him, attended his classes or were otherwise influenced by his visit constitute a Who’s Who of American cultural innovation at that period. Alan Watts, whose popular books on Zen were hugely influential, was there. So was John Cage, who from then on wrote music based on chance operations, on the theory that being open to the present moment, without conscious control, was the essence of Suzuki’s—and Zen’s—message.

Cage influenced Merce Cunningham, the dancer-choreographer, who in turn influenced many others in the performance art field. The Zen-derived notion of spontaneous improvisation became the essence of bebop, the post-war jazz movement. For Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and the other Beat-generation poets, Zen was a primary source, a sharp tool for prying the lid off literary culture as they knew it.

Within ten years, lively Japanese Zen masters who, from their side of the Pacific, had also been dreaming a Zen wave, were coming to America to settle. With the 1960’s and the coming of age of a new generation radicalized by the Vietnam war and psychotropic drugs, what had been churning underneath for decades broke out in a glorious and exhilarating spray. The first Zen centers in America were bursting with students willing to make serious commitments right away. It was an exciting and confusing time, perhaps unprecedented in the history of world religions.

I was part of this Zen wave. The cultural undercurrents I have been describing took place during my formative years. A student of literature and religion, I was sensitive enough to feel the brokenness that lay under the placid social veneer of the American culture I was raised in. So when I discovered Zen in the writings of D.T. Suzuki in the late 1960’s, I was dumbstruck. Here was exactly what I needed, a completely new way of experiencing the world. The compromising, experiential and immediate search for meaning that Zen proposed, without need of doctrine or belief, struck a chord in me. Like so many, I wasn’t looking for a new religion: I wanted a way to blast through the options that seemed available to me. I wanted real freedom. Zen promised this.

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The Zen Mind: A Documentary

I got a copy of this wonderful documentary from EmptyMind Films titled: “The Zend Mind: A Zen Journey Across Japan”. It was a beautifully done film and I recommend you check it out. Here’s a intro for the video from EMF on YouTube.

The Good, The Bad & The Labels

I came home from work Thursday and my wife was in our bathroom getting ready for work, she works nights. I sit on the edge of the bed while our son is occupying himself with his toy cars, and my wife Jenni asks a simple question…how was your day?

I immediately thought back on the various things that occurred that day. My employee who had broken his wrist the weekend before came in after getting his cast on and said he wasn’t sure if he could work with the restrictions from the doctor and a useless had (his job requires lifting heavy odd sized objects). I had my normal Thursday morning meeting as well that day and it was nothing special. I was stressed because I now had 3 printers to run, instead of just worrying about my 2, I had the big flatbed that my guy normally runs. That kept me busy and it was a tad stressful keeping it all running smoothly. On top of that my office had started a Biggest Loser competition and I was 4 days into a new diet and learning how to read/watch my calories, etc. I then had to leave early to get home so she could get to work, which usually isn’t a problem because my guy is still there getting jobs printed and everyone is being taken care of so I can step out. However, he was gone so my department was shutdown 1.5 hours earlier than usual, which tends to make the designers panic because they always worry a customer will call with a last minute rush and they’ll have to say no because no one is there to print it.

Okay, so all that goes through my head and at the end of the thought I reply to her with this: “oh man, I had a really bad day”.

I look back on it now and remember the rest of the night. Jenni was at work, I was taking care of our son and was thinking to myself that I deserved to rest because “I had a bad day”. I did absolutely nothing productive that night. I wasn’t as attentive to my son as I should have been. I didn’t get any laundry washed, I didn’t start a load of dishes. I was a bum.

I realize looking back that it all started with me deciding that I had to label my day as a bad one. With that label securely in place I allowed myself to use it as an excuse to not accomplish anything positive that night…which carried over to the next day. Why do I have to do that? Why do I have to choose to label something as good or bad. Maybe my day was neither good nor bad really, it just was what it was…a day. Nothing more, nothing less. Now please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying anything negative towards my wife asking the question. She was genuinely interested in the experiences of my day. I just realized for myself that I am constantly labeling people, events, even days of my life with Good or Bad. One little word or label puts an entire spin on my perspective. This isn’t to say having a positive outlook is a negative thing, but I just wonder why it is that I feel the need to label everything?

• My day was bad
• My meeting was boring
• My coworker is cocky
• I’m fat
• Life is pointless
• Brussel sprouts are nasty

Maybe I’m going overboard here, but honestly, look at the list. I have created a mental/verbal label for each item, which immediately changes my outlook because I focus on the label and don’t see what’s really there. My day was bad. I had some unpleasant moments of stress, but that okay. There were also moments where I smiled and enjoyed my time working. My coworker is an incredibly talented artist and designer, but I have labeled him as cocky, so that’s all I see. I’m blinded by the label and am unable or unwilling to see the beauty within him. I’m fat…yes, I’m not at a healthy weight, but do I have to apply such a negative label to myself? Is that really helping anything or anyone? Is life really pointless? No it’s not, but I’ve decided at that moment that this is the only view I wish to have, instead of choosing to see all the wonderful things within it. Are brussel sprouts nasty? Well, I don’t particularly enjoy them, but my wife loves them, so are they really nasty? No, I just don’t enjoy eating them. Do you see what I’m saying?

I’ve decided that I need to stop labeling everything and just live. Labels are hindering my progression as a father, as a husband, as an employee and as a conscious human being. If something is merely creating a road block in your life, then why do we continue to hold on to it?

Less Mormon and More Scott.

(post imported from old blog at mormonzen.com) 

So I’ve been trying to write a blog post for some time now. Only my second one and I’m stumped. That can’t be good.

When I first came up with the idea and bought the domain I was really excited. It seemed like the perfect concept for me, though I realize now that I got ahead of myself. I was raised LDS, and am still a member, though technically inactive for the last 5 years…basically since I got married. It’s not so much that I mind being LDS as that’s pretty much all I’ve known since birth. My problem however comes down to this. I have no desire to be defined by the church that I am a member of. I don’t want to die and have people remember me as a good Mormon. That really means nothing to me. I want to be remembered for the kind of person that I was and the people that I helped throughout my life, not that I was a Mormon. That’s great if the LDS teachings helped to shape me into the person that I am today, but the LDS religion is not who I am on a personal level. I may share some beliefs, but it’s not who I am. I’m not Scott the Mormon, or Scott the Return Missionary, or Scott the Bishop, or Scott the General Authority. I’m simply Scott, and nothing more.So that’s where my problem with this site I created lies. I myself put to much emphasis on the wrong thing. My journey (slow one) to learn about Zen and how to live a Zen lifestyle is about Me, not my religion. Sure I’ll talk about things related to the LDS church, because that’s a PART of who I am, but as I said before, it’s not WHO I AM. So I have to figure out what to do now. I’m feeling restricted by the domain and the name because I feel this pressure (created by myself) to make sure that every post has something related to Mormonism and Zen, and that’s just not going to be easy all the time.

I’ll be thinking of a new name that better fits where I want to take this and I’ll have this domain forward to that once it’s up, so stay tuned my imaginary audience, except you two lovely ladies who were kind enough to comment, I’ll think of something soon.

Zen In Everyday Living

Written by Tu Hoang

I seem to keep a lot of things on my mind. Thinking about work and worrying about my job security, wondering about my relationship with family and friends, trying to figure out where to invest my money, having to buy a new set of tires for the car, engrossed in the war on terrorism, seeing that all my buddies are getting married and a thousand other things that gnaw at me throughout the day.

I am not the only one with a lot on my mind. I have friends who are dissatisfied with their careers but work it so they can afford the house and the baby. I know guys with beautiful girlfriends and nice cars that still seek approval. I know girls with great careers; lots of friends but can not find love.

So it is easy for us all to be stressed. We look forward to ‘going out’, meeting up with friends, shopping, weekends when we can retreat to our homes, spending time with the new baby and all the other little moments that give us pleasure before we re-immerse ourselves into the immense displeasure of the daily drone. Life seems like a cycle of seeking pleasure, in material things, in business success or in personal relationships in order to stem the displeasures of circumstance.

I recently delved into Zen in order to break this cycle and experience life in its entirety; not embracing just the good bits and avoiding the bad bits because there will be times when such things are out of our control. I still maintain my career ambitions, my commitment to family and friends. My rent still has to be paid and my car still needs four new tires. But my day is no longer a daily drone; no longer a struggle and I no longer seek to ‘get away from it all’. I am experiencing things for what they are and not what they should be or aren’t. For a Zen master, who I am not, there is no friction between himself and life and the world. Events and circumstances ebb and flow but he is always centered steering his life wherever he sees fit and acting in a way that is always appropriate to the situation.

So what is Zen and how can it be used. Well, Zen is not a religion. There is Zen Buddhism but there can also be Zen Catholicism as well. There is no morality or ethics in Zen; for morality or ethics you will have to look elsewhere like Buddhism or Catholicism. Zen is a way of looking and confronting events, circumstances and life.

Joseph Campbell said of Zen practice, “It is like an athlete when he’s in the zone, except all of the time.” I thought it would be great to live and handle challenges and interact with people like I was in that zone all of the time. Don’t you?

Here are some techniques for laypeople to obtain the benefits of Zen.

Focused Breathing:

One of the basic ways of clearing your head of distractions so that you can concentrate is focusing on your breathing. Harvard Medical Center researchers can this the relaxation principle. In Zen it is called zazen or sitting meditation but I do this while jogging, reading and working. When you are relaxed you are more focused and effective in the task at hand.

To do this you must relax your diaphragm and be fully conscious of your breathing. This is not easy to do when you are tense. It takes true self-awareness to realize that your body is tense. It takes effort to relax those muscles in your stomach and discipline to breath steadily.

But try to focus on your breathing; here is a long breath in, here is a long breath out, here is a short breath in, here is a short breath out. You will find that you will be more in tune to the present moment. As your mind is focused on your breathing, your senses take in the situation around you unencumbered and unfiltered. You begin to see things as they unfold, hear and listen to sounds as they come, feel and smell aromas as they arise without automatically shutting any of it out or reflexively reacting to them.

Continued practice of focused breathing will help you deal with situations in a more rational and objective manner. It lets you put things in perspective. And it gives you insight into the way your body responds under different situations.

Focused Breathing is the foundation for adopting many of the other techniques of Zen. Practiced on its own it will yield immense benefit to you.

Beginner’s Mind:

Zen is known for some very esoteric notions, ‘No mind’, ‘With-out Thinking’ and a refutation of all concepts in general. This is one reason Zen appears inaccessible and nonsensical to the casual observer.

These notions are meant to encourage us to adopt a basic tenant of Zen, the Beginner’s Mind. When we first learn something we may be anxious, nervous, excited and looking forward to it but we begin without concepts, knowledge or any ideas about the subject. Maintaining a beginner’s mind, even in things that we are already experts, means not to carry any preconceived ideas and beliefs when confronting situations.

His students asked a Zen teacher if he ever got tired of being asked the same question day in and day out. He replied that each student was different and their question, though worded the same, had a different meaning.

A beginner’s mind protects us from over-conceptualizing, over-thinking and over-analyzing a situation. We are better able to think outside of the box because we respond appropriately to the needs of each situation. When we think we already know what is going on or that we are already experts in our field we are trapped in one mode of thinking. Many physicists, scientists, philosophers, economists and corporate leaders practice Zen-like techniques because they are aware of such traps.

The next time you think ‘here comes an annoying co-worker’ or ‘someone has let me down again, they’re always like this’ or ‘how am I ever going to get this done’, go back to focusing on your breathing, take in the situation unencumbered and unfiltered by your knowledge and conditioning and learning. Trust that you have all of the prerequisite abilities that have taken you this far in life to respond to any situation. Once your initial, reflexive thoughts subside you will find that by not categorize situations as they arise you will be open to more alternatives, more opportunities and more ways of responding to the situation appropriately and effectively.

Mindfulness:

It is not easy to let go of our thoughts, feelings and tension as they arise. Commotion, distractions and other people requiring our attention surround us. We cannot always maintain a beginner’s mind and often we cannot afford to focus on our breathing because we are actively responding to something; this is especially true with first applying Zen techniques. But like everything else, continued practice allows us to live these techniques not just merely apply them.

One way to over come the initial hurdles of applying Zen in a busy day is to be Mindful; basically to be self-aware and self-monitoring with the aim of accepting all of the thoughts and feelings that arise in us without judging them or shutting them out.

When you are focused on your breathing, with a Beginner’s Mind you will sense feelings and thoughts arising. Focusing on your breathing will keep you centered, and with a Beginner’s Mind you will observe thoughts and feelings without judging them; rather let thoughts and feelings rise and subside while you pay attention but not cling to them.

In Zen, all that arises within us are natural; they are a result of what we are and how we are connected to the world. Our eyes, ears and nose sense the world; we perceive, conceptualize and feel because that is the expression of our body.

When we are mindful of anger, sadness, nervousness and joy we acknowledge them, welcome them when they appear but we do not cling to them. When we feel love or happiness we welcome these feelings. It should be the same with anger and nervousness. All these feelings are our mind, body and consciousness communicating to us. When we are mindful of them we can only become wiser and more insightful.

I may get nervous before a test. ‘I am nervous. Hello nervousness, how are you today? Glad to feel you again.’ Focused breathing keeps me centered. When the test begins my nervousness naturally subsides. ‘Farewell nervousness,’ and I am completely in tuned with the task at hand.

Do not try to resist or suppress your feelings. That only means you have turned your mind to them and are clinging to them even more. Let your feelings and thoughts. Be mindful of them. I find that as the situation dictates my distracting feelings and thoughts subside allowing me to respond unencumbered by the task at hand.

Focused breathing, Beginner’s Mind and Mindfulness are basic Zen practices. They are almost common sense but often we become mired in the complexities and details of every day living and lose sight of common sense wisdom. Zen is not a monastic way of life. The Zen ideal is to experience and embrace life experiences full on; not editing out the bad bits because there are no bad bits, just things are they are.

Tu Hoang is a business student at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. For comments email: fete@sprint.ca

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