Why Zen?
Why practice Zen?
What a loaded question to walk into! Asking this question explodes with crashing waves of embodied being that open up uncountable dimensions of our existence. It is an important question to ask ourselves on a regular basis and to be prepared to have intimate echoes come back reminding us of the path upon which we are walking…the shared path of life.
Roshi Paul Kisho Stern
Zen is an engaged practice (as opposed to a static system of belief) that challenges me to improve my human-ness through directly and increasingly connecting to “being” in an expanding, holistic fashion;
There is a recognition of simultaneous inter-connectedness and autonomy in operation that is very attractive to me as a method of interacting with and being a part of reality…the work of manifesting this is endless;
The focus on Buddha, Dharma, Sangha…as areas of personal and community development;
There is no “other thing” to get or outside refuge to seek (though we do in a certain way)…the notion that the tools, the path, and the goal are already supplied and apparent.
Roshi Paul Genki Kahn
Zen…
… provides a pristine laboratory to study self, consciousness, relationship, and meaning.
… provides a uniquely personal, fulfilling and meaningful way of life. The practice is our life, and our life is the practice.
… provides a natural, direct, experiential, nuanced and refined training path in spiritual development.
… develops personal characteristics of discipline, flexibility, spontaneity, humor, earthiness, willpower, purpose, and creativity.
… is focused on this world, this moment, this self, this experience as the very ground of the sacred.
… reveals the multi-dimensional reality of each and every person perception and creation, the inter-relationships among each and all, the co-creation.
Roshi Monika Genmitsu Kahn
ZEN = INTIMACY WITH NO ESCAPE.
In Zen practice I throw myself into being.
Heidegger’s “DASEIN”, usually translated with “BEING THERE”, actually means much more than this. It points to presence, being present, being here, being this and being there in an entirely “JUST THIS” way.
Through surrendering to intimate merger, Zen gives me a way to face all there is, not to leave space for escape, but to turn towards it and be it, to penetrate it and to embody it.
The more I penetrate my self, it dissolves into being and compassionate understanding for all beings.
Sensei Trish Baishin Johnson
Zen is open, flexible, not bound to right and wrong. It is a way of being in the world and with this practice it becomes easier to see the world as our self. This practice of Zen is one for us to realize within ourselves; it is all right here in front of us. It is awakening to the presence and newness of life. Zen is fierce and compassionate; accessible. It is constantly changing and yet right here at this very moment. It encompasses all time and space. It is in every activity, action, thought, and way of being. Zen merges the entire universe in one drop of rain.
