EXHAUST THE MIND ROAD

We often talk about practicing not knowing and maintaining wonder in Zen practice. We hear this, and it can go in one ear. Maybe we can even see the objective truth in it when we reason it out. But it’s difficult for us to actually let go and practice that way.

We still revert to some sense of knowing, some way of trying to appreciate the world through our rational mind. The issue is that when we do this, we fail to actually be moved by what is present. So it’s still important that you go ahead and reason it through — reason it through until you recognize that that mind road is going nowhere, and that reason isn’t going to make you intimate with your lived experience.

Once you get to that point, and you can open your heart and allow yourself to be moved by what’s at hand, you stop thinking things through with your head and start actually making your way in this world with your hands — transforming the circumstances as you experience them, particularly the experience of suffering, through wisdom and compassion, into joy.

But the first step is that you have to exhaust the mind road. Lather, rinse, repeat — over and over again — until you’re cured of the notion that reason is the most intimate way of being.

#Zen #Meditation #Mindfulness #Buddhism #DailyZen