We can’t do zazen unless we are honest. Zazen itself teaches us that. Without honesty, zazen won’t happen. Nothing will move through us, we’ll go to sleep or feel stagnant or sit there lost in thought.
We’ve got to feel what is happening, feel what is coming up. Actually feel where we are stuck in our bodies. And we have to face it, face ourselves. In facing it, it heals us, brings us into a greater unity with reality and this great life energy.
When I’m sitting and falling asleep, or drifting into thoughts, if I can get curious, really face what I am feeling, often a locked up place in the body, something begins to move through me, and like a flame, ignites.
We can’t plan ahead how we’ll be honest in the next zazen, how we’ll meld with the room, as it is a present time relationship with what is happening. So, doing zazen, anew each and every day, brings us naturally and continually into alignment with reality and the universe. The very practice of zazen sculpts us into being honest.
It is as if we molt our skins like cicadas each time we sit zazen, emerging from the shell and being born again. Zazen trains us to face life, and makes for fresh and honest people, who naturally, perhaps without even knowing about Buddhism, become Buddhas.
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Zen Embodiment 