Zazen

"Zazen is the cessation of the everyday business of thinking! Doing nothing, expecting nothing, getting nothing - sometimes it may appear to be so simple that we might not continue practising. However, we should not be sitting machines. If our everyday lives are unsound, it is impossible to practise the real way of zazen. Zazen is the son of daily life - if not, it is a lie - and at the same time, zazen is the mother of daily life.

We do not need a particular time in order to have space in our hearts for calling back the essential wisdom. It is enough if we sit in calmness for a while each day. Being busy is different from having no room in our hearts. Therefore, however busy we may be, we will find that we can sit; we always find time in our life for eating and sleeping. Thus, if we say that we have no time for meditation, we are really saying that we have some other priority. We should, please, examine ourselves what is the most profound priority in our soul?

We are all beginners. This is not only true, but necessary - even for someone who has been practising for more than one hundred years. This is not trite sentiment. We need the beginner's mind in everything, whatever we do, whoever we are. Expert practitioners are naturally able to discern and rectify their attitudes and actions the moment the need arises. They are always able to abandon their own selves. They are always beginners.

This is the meditation of infinite awakening; this sitting does not remain as our own."
Hôgen