Both Orderly and Eccentric

A Chinese woman with her pet goose: a wonderful photo taken by Cristina Goettsch Mittermeier. At first she thought the woman was taking the goose to the market, but then she discovered the couple were best friends.

*

The more you sense the rareness and value of your own life, the more you realize that how you use it, how you manifest it, is all your responsibility. We face such a big task, so naturally we sit down for a while.

~ Kobun Chino

*

Zazen is not meditation. It is not a mental exercise, a thing you do with your mind. It is not focused on practices that are antidotes to afflictive states or secondary consciousness. It is not about attaining a special state, being relaxed, or solving your problems. It is not about reducing stress, working with trauma, and being happy. Nor is it associated with visualizations or phrases to nurture certain qualities of mind.

It is about being radically open to things just as they are, not grasping at or rejecting phenomena, but simply being present and at ease with moment to moment uncertainty and groundlessness. It is fully embodied presence, with no separation between the mind, heart, body, and the context of our lived experience, and letting openness or not knowing deconstruct our version of reality. It is the method of non-method. Nothing extra, nothing added. This is zazen… just sitting upright.

~ Joan Halifax

*