What is Zen?

Zen means understanding yourself. What are you?

Why meditation?

What kind of life do you want?
Why do you wake up every morning?
Why do you eat every day?
Do you know?

Maybe you would like to be calmer, or more grounded. Maybe you’d like to become a better, kinder person. Maybe you would like to be more focused or more productive, and you’ve heard that meditation can help you get there. That’s okay—meditation has many benefits, including increasing concentration, training one’s patience, and even helping people practice kindness.

Nevertheless, using meditation practice to attain a particular result like this is reproducing the same pattern that got us interested in meditation in the first place: I want something, I can’t get it, so I’m suffering.

Zen practice is simply about resting in what is, right now. Can you sit and be 100% present with yourself in this moment, without wanting to change yourself? Can you fully accept all the various assembled parts of yourself, as they appear and disappear, moment to moment? Often people come to meditation practice wanting to be “calm,” and then when they sit down they notice just how busy their minds are! “This is bullshit,” they’ll say—”I want to be calm!” What they do not realize is that noticing the busyness of their own minds is the first step to letting their busy minds settle.

So, first, settle your mind: then you can begin to have some insight into the nature of your mind. What is the shape of it? What is the texture of it? When thoughts come, where do they come from? When thoughts go, where do they go to? Zen practice doesn’t actually teach anything—rather it points you back to yourself. What’s happening now, in this moment? What is in your own mind, this very second? Your body? Your emotions? What is that like?

Try sitting for 5 minutes. Then, as you’re ready, sit for 7 minutes. Then 10 minutes. Work your way slowly up to 20 minutes of meditation. And do it every day, at around the same time (or if this isn’t possible, in the same sequence of your morning / evening routine), no excuses. But it’s not a discipline: it’s a habit, like putting your clothes on in the morning before going outside.

If you’d like to learn how to meditate and need some one-on-one coaching,
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