A short piece on zazen

This short piece of writing is intended for those of you new to this practice.

I follow the practice of Soto Zen Buddhism. The twin pillars of this are meditation and the Precepts. The Precepts are the active aspect of practice. Meditation (zazen) is the bedrock from which everything flows. A good way into understanding this is the beginning of the Scripture of Great Wisdom, which goes,

‘When one with deepest wisdom of the heart, which is beyond discriminative thought’.

Zazen is the letting go, without judgement, of that which arises in our minds. Doing this regularly allows us to see a deeper truth to the one our minds generally conjure up. We see that when we follow these discriminatory thoughts they can drive us in ways that aren’t helpful, and form behavioural loops which are difficult to get out of. Meditation is a way to see through these repeating patterns and show that it is possible to have peace and contentment in our lives. We return to our spiritual home, a place which we had left but never quite forgot.