We do Zen, like Ikkyu.

Homework assignment #2

Sometimes we receive the gift of complete failure, complete demoralisation.

When you have nothing to prove, and no image to uphold, you are truly free.

When have you been truly free?

No more questions.

The Zen Koan is used only to bring you to the point where you realise that no question will ever probe deeply enough, and no answer will ever suffice.

Pay attention to that moment.

IdoZen Fundamentals.

You are not the puff of smoke or the air that carries it.

Homework Assignment #1

Sit down. Hold your right hand out in front of you.

Clench your hand into a fist. Relax and open your hand.

Now explain how you did that? (Before you answer, do it a few times and really think about HOW you did it.)

Question 1: If you can't explain how you did that, did YOU do it?

Question 2: If you can't explain HOW you did it, maybe you can explain WHO did it.?

Good luck with that.

IdoZen. I do Zen. I decided to start this blog today because I have begun a Zen-style practise of "meditation" that involves sitting, and nothing else. I have no great explanation why I have started it. A few years ago I got deeply into some new-age bullshit meditation and eventually all the crap that came along with it drove me away. I'm now an atheist. I don't believe in the occult, the supernatural, life-after death, or any of that stuff.

So why, you might ask, have I started sitting again. It has to do with determinism. I heard about and then heavily researched the idea of determinism. If you don't know what determinism is, watch this or listen to this. Then think about it, puzzle over it, chew it over for a while. Once you feel like you're getting a grasp on it, sit back and enjoy watching yourself go about life, and marvel at the fact that you don't really know why or how you do anything, and yet you do it.

Then join me in sitting quietly for a few minutes each day.