Sawaki retorted, “Absolutely not! Zazen is useless!” That “uselessness” is grounded in the realization that fundamentally there is nothing to gain and nothing needs fixing.

Questions ramify in endless directions; answers bring an end to possibility.

We must pursue this fantasy until we prove to ourselves that it is truly empty. I wish I could say, “until we prove it to ourselves once and for all”—but alas, we all seem to need to prove it over and over again, as our fantasy reasserts itself in ever new guises at each turn in our life. Like the mythical monster Hydra that Hercules battled, it gr

Let’s enjoy our dream. It’s the only life there is.

oneness is not the only point of view that counts. In fact, what we call compassion is our assertion that not all things are equal. Kindness is not equal to cruelty; attention is not equal to indifference; a sink full of…

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there is more than a grain of wisdom in the Skeptics’ approach and not a little resemblance to our Buddhist concept of non-attachment. We might hear echoes of the Third Zen Ancestor’s reminder that the Way is not difficult for those who do not hold on to likes and dislikes. Knowing, not knowing; liking, disliking; wanting, not wanting—these are the

It is inevitably true that life is suffering. But the reverse is also true: suffering is life. It is in the midst of suffering that we get to exercise so many of the virtues that make us human. Our sense of courage, justice, compassion, wisdom; all these things manifest and operate in and because of the reality of suffering. All those aspects of ou

In my own life, Zen and psychoanalysis have been practiced in tandem now for thirty years. Each continues to challenge, inform, and enrich the perspective of the other.

diverse contexts, then I know precisely “what time is” and no formulation can make this clearer to me. And should I have to explain the meaning of the word to somebody, I would teach him to use the word in typical cases, i.e., in cases such as “I have no time,” “this is not the time for that,” “too much time has passed since then,” etc. In short, I