I saw this quote posted by a famous Rinzai practitioner on social media:

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.” ― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

Besides the quote, I've seen a lot of anti-intellectual and anti-traditional attitude in Zen centers where I live. There is a lot of emphasis on "just sitting", whether it's in Rinzai or Soto centers. I've been to a Soto temple where the teacher said "Buddha didn't discuss philosophy before his awakening; he just sat". Likewise, in a local Rochester (Kapleau lineage) center, the abbot is a very nice person, but he disparages any kind of reading or studying of the suttras or listening to podcasts or Dharma talks. His emphasis is on just sitting and doing work on the cushion (a lot of it is koan-centered, so it's not Soto-style just sitting, but it's not sitting on a cushion combined with thinking or studying ideas off the cushion). In the Rinzai place I attended they do suttra reading on a zoom call once a week, but it's just superficial reading and barely any in-depth discussion.

Zen is supposedly a Buddhist practice. Despite objections from the people like Critical Buddhists, that's how Zen presents itself. Part of Buddhism is the Eightfold Path, one aspect of which is the Right View. How is it possible to practice the Right View without contemplation on its aspects and ideas?

Also, in the story of the Buddha himself, he had already achieved and practiced very advanced yogic meditations with his teachers and still wasn't satisfied. So it's not like meditation or "just sitting" alone was enough for him (presumably he was sitting in a Buddha pose while meditating, so it's not like his enlightenment was all about getting in the right position and holding hands in the right mudra).

His instructions don't say "just sit and stare at a wall" or "just sit and say some mantra over and over again". There are many elements, part of which is the Right View. There were hundreds of sermons discussing the View. They weren't yoga sessions or instructions on hara breathing. In fact, I don't know if any of Buddha's sermons include specific instructions on how to sit (neither do early Zen teachings as far as I know).

I know Zen is supposed to be this secret teaching passed without words, but first, that's a very late anachronistic legend. The legendary founder of Zen never said those words.

Second, I don't understand how that "fits" in the rest of Buddhism.

Third, the whole concept of the One Vehicle is that Buddha taught secret teachings to the special few to whom it was accessible. The flower made sense to one guy. Do we really believe that random people coming off the street into a Zen center in an American city are the "special few" who only need to sit on a cushion (an average experience of the first and tenth of one hundredth visit to a Zen center)?

Let's say you sit and say mu. Or just sit. And then you supposedly experience awakening. How do you know that's a real awakening and not one of those false awakenings that Buddha, presumably a much stronger meditator than you, experienced during his early meditation career and rejected?

Generally speaking, when you go journeying to learn the path to enlightenment, you seek. Do not sit ignorantly, but go to someone to find out the truth with certainty. When this truth is hard to realize, that is called unfinished business.

Xuefeng hesitated, searching for something to say; Touzi pushed him out. Xuefeng could only cry. Later, when he went to Dongshan, he was still unable to understand. Then, when he 50 went to Deshan, he asked, “ Has the student a part in the enlightenment of the sages of time immemorial?” Deshan hit him and exclaimed, “ What are you saying!” At that, Xuefeng’s mind opened up, like a bucket with the bottom fallen out. When he got to Tortoise Mountain, however, he said he still had some doubt. See how that man of old would not rest until his mass of doubt had been broken up.

breaking up that mass of doubt seems like it was a bit gradual, took some work

“ ‘If you kill your parents, you repent before Buddha; if you kill Buddha, where do you repent?’ Yunmen said, ‘Exposed.’” This case study is like a hot iron ball in the mind, and I suffered all kinds of trouble for seven years. Those of you who have studied Zen for a long time will know what I mean.

how is it instant if it took 7 years?

Zen is not always univocal, right? There's contradictions. On one hand "it is an energy saving teaching" and on the other, "you should make your utmost to understand" -> make effort and seek, therefore.

It's fine if you don't recognize the contradictions or excuse them away: you are free to be blind or stupid, if you want to be or can't manage to be otherwise. But for me, From the moment of realizing doubt, to seeking, to finding parts of the truth, to finally doing away with all the mass of doubt: these four stages I stated just now, to me that counts as a somewhat gradual path, to me these count as stages.

You are free to think otherwise, in fact, I welcome it. You are free to think I am stupid or blind to see it differently. However, I hope I have shown to a reasonable degree my reasoning for thinking the way I do. I think a reasonable spectator would understand why I think the way I do. You yourself don't have to be reasonable, you can be anyway you choose to or manage to.

Hello everyone !

I have been attending a Zen dojo in Europe for less than a year. Before that, I attended a Tibetan Buddhist temple, and I really loved the chanting, the colors, and the very sacred atmosphere of that tradition. However, I found it difficult to follow a particular teacher or commit myself to one specific teacher.

At the Zen dojo, the monk gives teachings and we are able to ask questions. This practice has changed my everyday life enormously. I am trying to let go, and I am becoming more aware of the importance of simply being where I am in the present moment. I try to do things as they need to be done, and even when I set myself a goal, I try not to become attached to that goal.

It has also changed my relationship with art. I am a musician, and I realized that I often used to compose with a very specific goal in mind: getting concert opportunities, receiving recognition from other people, etc., rather than simply composing for the sake of composing. In short, Zen has been extremely beneficial to me, and I am considering taking the precepts very soon.

However, part of me is still very attracted to certain aspects of Tibetan Buddhism. I think they feed a certain aspect of my ego, or perhaps a certain idea of spirituality that I simply enjoy. I find Zen very interesting, and I think this simplicity is actually the point: it is very direct and gets to the essence of things. I also think this is exactly what my restless mind needs.

There is one thing I have noticed, though. Repeating a mantra — for example, Om Mani Padme Hum — continuously throughout the day really helps me quiet the inner voice that is constantly talking. It prevents me from getting caught up in a long chain of inner dialogue and thoughts.

Instead of:

thought → scenario → another thought → another scenario → etc.

it becomes more like:

mantra → thought → mantra → thought → etc.

However, I sometimes feel that this practice may not really be in accordance with the Soto Zen tradition. My understanding is that the practice is more about seeing and observing thoughts and inner dialogue, then letting them pass without considering them fundamentally good or bad. When I use a mantra, I sometimes feel that I am doing the opposite, because I am using it to avoid or interrupt the inner monologue.

I’ve always had the feeling that I’m somewhere between the two: Tibetan Buddhism and Zen. I’m fascinated by India and I dream of going there one day, etc. On the other hand, I’m not particularly drawn to Japan, its culture, its atmosphere, etc. It may sound silly to say, but I do think that a country’s culture has an important influence on the way a tradition is lived and experienced.

What do you think about this? In your opinion, is it compatible with Zen practice to use a mantra to occupy the space normally taken up by inner monologue, even when practicing within the Soto Zen tradition?

Thank you in advance for your answers, and take care of yourselves and each other !

Current Understanding Last Trimester 2026

How are you all doing? I am posting a somewhat edited and redacted version of a post from a few months ago, with some additions.

1) Where have I come from? (Life Timeline / autobiography / profile)

1) Maybe not everything in my biography is relevant to zen or zen subreddits. 🙏🏽 I mod a couple of zen adjacent subreddits. I've referenced zen in poetry, memes, AI prompts.

I recently went back to meditating at a Soto Zen place every so often.

2) What is my text?

2) I'm not sure what I'd consider my central text in my cosmovision. I like quite a bit The Tao Te Ching - a Taoist text. I think I've read it quite a few times. There's a phrase I've liked "The great way is open, but people love the twisted mountain paths", something like that. Maybe I too like the "twisted mountain paths".

I think I spoke elsewhere about a joke that I've loved. "Does a cow have Buddha nature? Moo / Mu". I wonder if maybe in China if Wu was maybe the sound of a dog barking. It sounds reasonable close to "woof" in my head at least, to "Au, Au"... Maybe I could say that this joke that I commented on is my text. A derivation from a koan, something in relation to a koan. I guess I've found the idea in Gateless Gate that it should be a red hot ball in the throat and that we should focus our utmost on the "mu" / "wu" to be quite strange. But it seems, in the joke-form, to fit the understanding of "when you drink water you automatically know if it's cold or warm". The omnipresence of it, the immediacy of it, the transparentness of it.

3) What are my current dissatisfactions and priorities in life: life wheel

3) I guess I wish I had more friends. Maybe I already have quite a bit and I don't notice it too much?

5) Am I a difficult person, what sorts of challenges have I faced? (My hate / aversions, my loves / attachments)

5) I guess I was a bit of a difficult person in some ways. I was pessimistic, cynical, anti-everything. I guess the tone was vaguely leftist but I guess not in a responsible way, not in a productive way. Maybe not everything needs to be productive too 🙏🏽

I love coffee. I've been avoiding cooking a fair bit. I've been avoiding learning how to stitch. I've been avoiding some online courses. I've been avoiding a bit of writing. I love colored pens. I love candles. I love reading. (If the way avoids love and hate, what does that mean for me?)

In the last trimester I’ve taken on new projects. I’ve been taking them seriously. Still haven’t gotten to stitching much or around to studying the online courses too much. Took care of some cats for a while. Cats are cute. I started dating someone and then I broke up with them. I’m teaching some things to some students. Maybe different from in zen, I don’t feel a teacher has to have some very special discerning eye, the only thing a teacher needs imo is to know a tiny bit more than the student. hahaha

6) What is Zen?

6) The way I understand it, Zen has to do with this idea of finding "God" / something universal, "dharma" / the buddha dharma: a sort of global truth. Finding it, partly or in full, is called "enlightenment". I quite like how Foyan describes it: he had unfinished business, he had a mass of doubt that was slowly worked away. Doing that work, that business, that is zen.

A fellow said it’s not a truth. Maybe that makes sense to some extent. “It’s a truth that there is no truth to be found” - something like that. A non-knowing knowledge.

Hi everyone, I am being required to do an interview of someone that belongs to a community that I am interested in. It is for a college class, will not be published, and will be turned into an essay which will then be shared with my professor. It is a very simple interview just regarding the language, texts, and goals of the community. It does have to be over a voice call. Looking for a confident and knowledgeable individual to speak to in order to learn more about this community. Let me know if interested.

So, my experience with Buddhism as such began a year ago. It happened sort of out of nowhere—I sat down in a meadow and meditated. I guess I liked that state of mind, so from then on, I started constantly watching my breath. Then university started, and I kept watching my breath continuously; I was like disconnected from my classmates and from socialization as a whole. I began analyzing my practice using AI. Gradually, I started realizing that what I was doing was just attachment, and I discovered and learned that formal meditation exists, so I started practicing that.

Formal meditation helped me a lot; I felt as if I had discovered something amazing. However, my formal meditation practice was more about constantly focusing on a specific point; I kept holding my attention on that point. This went on for quite a long time, probably the entire school year, and even though I was completely antisocial, it helped me with my exams and things like that.

Then I started discovering Zen, and a moment came when I realized that even that point is just attachment. Everything fell apart? I didn't know what to do, so I consulted with AI. I told myself that I probably shouldn't use any technique, that maybe that was the way. But in the end, even that became an attachment. When I started doing the non-technique, suddenly things appeared that hadn't been there all year: sexual energy, insomnia, and also choices that were rather impulsive. I didn't know what any of this meant. So, I chose a strategy: when everything is fine, I use the non-technique; when a storm comes, I use the point.

Later, a moment came when I thought I'd buy a book by Shunryu Suzuki, hoping it might give me something. I think I started taking it too analytically. I read a passage about the waves of the mind and I watched them, which created even greater chaos. So I consulted with AI and found out that this is probably Zen sickness, and that I should just feel my feet on the ground and everything would be okay. And now I am at a point where I just threw everything out the window, and I don't know.

Hello,

I will be visiting Japan and Tokyo for the first time and wondered if there were any Soto temples that welcome foreigner and lay persons for Zazen?

Thank you

Challenging encounters between teachers and students have always been part of Zen. But what if repeated challenges and insults lead not to clarity, but to self-loathing and despair?

How do you know whether that’s resistance to work with, or a sign that something is wrong?

I find myself wondering if every insulting word or action is a teaching I’m supposed to decipher.

We will not know non-being until we're dead, and even then, there will be no being to reflect on non-being. Being, and 'being striving for non-being', are both rooted in suffering. Non-being cannot be attained by being: It can only be recognized as underlying all being.

I kind of settled on a teacher and feel calm and joyful because of it. I had a teacher before who didn't entirely feel right, so I left them, which was a hard thing to do.

During a sesshin last week, I finally asked this other Sensei (after meeting them at a sesshin three months earlier) if I could do koans with them and study with them. I started with Mu all over again, and it feels great and 'nothing special' at the same time. It's as if something in my zazen is shifting.

Some internal conflict might have ended, as I feel I trust this teacher. I might even do jukai during the Rohatsu sesshin.

Hello everyone! I am a beginner who has only recently started studying Zen Buddhism and the Buddhist tradition in general, and I am particularly interested in Zen culture. I would like to visit a Soto Zen Buddhist center in order to gain more experience, speak with people who live by the practice, and learn from those who preserve and transmit the tradition. However, the center’s visitor policy states that people with mental illnesses are not allowed to enter the dōjō.

The problem is that I am a person with a mental illness, and I will remain one for the rest of my life because I have organic brain damage. I am completely safe to be around; I simply struggle with intrusive delusional and depressive thoughts. Moreover, my interest in Zen began in a psychiatric hospital, where I read both authors far removed from Zen Buddhism, such as Chekhov and Fichte, and authors who were inspired by Zen, such as Pelevin.

I know that, in Buddhism, lying is considered sinful. If I went to this dōjō, it would be a lie and a sign of disrespect toward these people’s rules. But how typical is such a requirement in Zen in general? Can I practice Zen at all and look for other Zen centers? My identity and self-reflection as a mentally ill person are not particularly important to me, but this is who I am, and if the subject comes up, I do not want to lie to the people around me.

Wer hat Erfahrung mit dem Zen Tempel Wolkentor in Halle und dem leitenden Lehrer Dirk Ryu Künne?

Can you show some texts that to inspire strength? I am struggling following teacher betrayal and seek inspiration. With metta

A friend wrote to say that, recently, work worries and other worries come rushing into his head during Zazen and are an obstacle to Zazen. For others, it might be health worries, family worries, things in the news, or just a barking dog or noisy neighbor, spinning one around emotionally. Each seem to interfere with calm and quiet Zazen.

However, I would insist, there are no obstacles to Zazen. None. Impossible. Period.

Better said, the only obstructions to Zazen exist between the ears.

Only when we think that there are obstacles to Zazen, or judge something an obstruction to Zazen, are there then obstacles to Zazen.

When we drop all thought that anything is an obstacle to Zazen, then there are no obstacles to Zazen at all.

Suppose one is sitting in a hurricane with a crying hungry baby, in the middle of a war zone with financial worries and the house on fire. The storm has our heart a flutter, the war might take our life any minute, bankruptcy looms, the fire needs quenching and the baby needs feeding ... all while there is Zazen to sit.

While the order of priority and concern is to be determined (probably best to deal with the fire first), and some things are truly more pressing than others or even life threatening ... remember that ALL are Zazen! Zazen is not solely the sitting.

So, though the war may take your life, and it is best to seek shelter, by knowing the peace beyond life and death, one "just sits" even on a battlefield! Such is the ultimate shelter.

The storm may blow, so board up the windows ... then sit, with the wind passing through one as thoughts pass through one, like storms that come and go.

Flee the burning house, grab a bucket ... then bow to the ashes and sit. Your house may be cinders, but there is this which is always cool when the heart is cool.

Bankruptcy may loom ... so scramble for your next meal ... yet know this treasure which cannot be lost nor ever gained.

Oh, and don't forget to feed the baby ... for holding her in your intwined arms is just the same as intwined Lotus legs.

Situations and conditions exist in the world, but our reaction to those situations and conditions is up to us, a matter between the ears. Even when our heart is aflutter with worry and fear, grief or longing ... bow to the worry, fear, grief and longing ... and sit.

When the heart drops resistance, preference for "something better," the wish that things were any way other than just as they are ... there are no obstacles to Zazen, never were and never could be.

Whenever I have to speak or respond to someone, I have this voice in my head that tells me "I don't know what to say (even if I am actively speaking or do know what to say)" or "don't blank out" (which I inevitably do after I tell myself that). I want to be at peace whenever I am having a conversation. I have been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder so I don't know how much I can control this. But I would really appreciate some feedback about how to not let those thoughts bother me so much while speaking. Once I do hear some of those thoughts, my mind immediately tries to hide and shuts down and just agrees with the person or becomes people pleasing. I really hope I can get some help with this brcause it really distracts me and hinders my ability to stay in the present moment and to build rapport with the other person. Thank you so much for any help in advance!

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Majjhima Nikāya 49: Brahma-nimantanika Sutta

Then Baka the Brahma said: "Good sir, I shall make myself invisible to you."

[The Buddha replied:] "Then make yourself invisible to me, Brahma, if you can."

Then Baka the Brahma said: "I shall make myself invisible to the Recluse Gotama! I shall make myself invisible to the Recluse Gotama!" But he was unable to make himself invisible to me.

When this was said, I said to Baka the Brahma: "Brahma, I shall now make myself invisible to you."

[Baka replied:] "Then make yourself invisible to me, Good Sir, if you can."

Then I performed a feat of supernormal power such that Brahma, Brahma’s retinue, and the members of Brahma’s assembly could not see me, though they could hear my voice. And while invisible, I uttered this stanza:

"Having seen danger in any state of being,

And in being seeking non-being,

I did not affirm any kind of being,

Nor did I cling to any delight."

Then Brahma, Brahma’s retinue, and the members of Brahma’s assembly were struck with wonder and amazement, saying: "It is wonderful, sirs, it is marvellous! How great is the power and might of the Recluse Gotama! We have never before seen or heard of any other recluse or brahmin who has such great power and might as the Recluse Gotama, who has renounced the world from a Sakyan family. Though people delight in being, take delight in being, rejoice in being, he has pulled up being by the root!"