The Truth of This Life: Zen Teachings on Loving the World as It Is

Maybe the virtue of our practice is that it shows us the arrogance of our minds. We discover that we don’t see things as they are; we see things as our mind creates them.

our work is to love the world just as it is. Because our discriminating mind is constantly thinking of improvements for the world—how I should be, how you should be—to love the world as it is means to completely accept those thoughts and also our regrets about how the world is. Loving the world as it is, is being willing to be in the only world we

begins. In our parenting group someone said, “Practice is when you can’t walk away from your crying child, no matter how frustrated you are.”

Zen practice doesn’t make promises. No treats or discounts. In Zen you have to pay the full price.

cultivating the capability to be engaged with the reality of my life.

ALL OF US LOOK OUT at the same world. And we all see a different version of it, depending on what’s already in our minds. Practice is to notice how the dust of our mind obscures the clear reflection of the world, how our values and preferences determine our interpretations.

Emptiness also means complete. Because our true nature is not the particular form we take in each moment, we say our true nature is formless. We are both a particular form, and we are free from that form. Therefore, we exist as all possibilities, as the entire universe.

See if you can do that, if your present activity, your present breath, is compelling enough to draw you out of your planning mind, out of your past mind.

Noticing our thoughts, and understanding how they determine our actions and relationships, helps us understand that we cocreate the world we live in with everyone. We cocreate our lives with others.