June 2002, Issue 8

Editorial

The following is an excerpt from this issue:

Today we have people of many different levels of practice coming here and doing the same thing. This is wonderful. This is very wonderful. Zen practice offers many levels. That is the nature of Zen practice. Zen practice is not offering some special level of concentration (laughs). It’s open to all levels.

Some people who have done a lot of sitting and receive a joy of the practice, in the sense of samadhi, have a broader range, that’s all. But that doesn’t mean that another person has a shallow range. The first person has, from time to time, recognised a depth or experienced some clarity of the body and mind. Even without that experience you can recognise the same thing in your practice. It’s all basically the same thing and it’s just that one person has a different experience with the practice, or of the understanding that goes with it; another person has not gone as deep—they’re working in a muddy place (laughs).

Often the metaphor that is used to express clarity in the practice of body and mind is water. Water has the full range. Water is not frozen (laughs). If water is frozen like ice, it has only one quality. Water is fluid. When some impurity or some muddy stuff starts up, naturally it becomes translucent, not transparent, and you become unable to see. That’s the full range…(Continued on page 1.)

Read this Myoju (file on Google Drive)