Living Zen Life

I am relatively young in my practice of zazen within the Japanese Soto Zen Buddhist tradition but am old in years. Old enough and experienced enough to be tired of theorizing about Zen. Recently, I began to encounter Japanese and Chinese Zen poets. I’ve been drawn to the lives of these long gone practitioners who left “establishment” Zen to discover a life of Zen. Their writings bear witness to what Zen looks like in practice, albeit in their extreme form. Nevertheless, these have become my primary teachers, my dharma ancestors – Ryōkan, Stonehouse (Shihwu), and Cold Mountain (Hanshan) – among others. What comes next remains to be seen.