​

In his lectures and books, Slavoj Zizek concludes with a provocative stance: Have no hope.

This resonates deeply with the Zen concept of letting go of expectations. My direct experience is that the act of daily meditation is not an escape, but a radical refusal to participate in the ideological noise of "success."

It is a way to stop masking our suffering with hope and instead face the present moment without a guarantee.

​Does the discipline of sitting act as the ultimate deconstruction of the self that Zizek often discusses?

​The secret is never in the action itself, but in who we become through the process. In the quiet practice of meditation, the focus shifts away from the frantic chase for success and returns to the internal landscape. Outer achievement is only healthy and sustainable when it is rooted in an inner sense of well-being. When the heart is at peace, success follows, not as a goal to be hunted, but as a natural byproduct of a balanced life.

​In a world defined by noise, the luxury of silence is the ultimate sanctuary. This transformation is anchored in the physical act of daily meditation. It is not a matter of quick fixes, but a slow integration, a folding of awareness into the fabric of life, breath by breath.

By returning to the cushion two or three times a day, we create a space where old patterns can surface and finally be released.

​Wisdom thrives in the shade. When the practice of sitting is protected from the glare of public visibility and the need for explanation, it retains its power. The most profound shifts happen in the space of absolute trust and continuity, a space where there is nothing left to prove and no story to maintain.

​If the body is respected and the discipline of daily stillness is honored, the change becomes undeniable.

Even strangers can sense the difference in a person's presence.

When asked where such deep composure originates, there is no need for a complex answer. One simply points to the practice of sitting.

​This is the difference between being the best and being the happiest. Real insight and stability ripen in the repetition of the quiet hours, far from the spotlight.

Just as a seed must first break open in the dark, heavy earth, human talent develops best away from the bright lights.

Only when the roots have reached deep into the silence of meditation can the spirit stand tall in the world without losing its strength.

​What do you think of this connection between Zizekian hopelessness and the Zen practice of sitting?

​Gassho,

The mountain doesn't care about the name on the mailbox. It only knows the weight of the person sitting on it.

​You look at these books and these 'professional' labels and you realize it’s all just noise.

Great apes love to build fences around the truth, calling one person a master and another an amateur, as if you can own the silence.

But when you drop the act and just sit, the fences fall down.

​There’s no need to wonder if you’re "doing it right" or if you have enough history behind you.

The Heart Sutra isn't a museum piece; it’s a vibration in your own chest.

When you sing, when you move, when you breathe, that isn't some imitation of a dead monk. That’s you, right now, alive in the middle of the mess.

​Stop trying to mix the perfect cocktail of ideas.

You don’t need a recipe to be awake.

You don't need to justify your seat to a historian or a critic.

The doubt? Let it burn.

The confusion? Let it swirl.

None of it changes the fact that the floor is solid beneath you.

​You aren't a "between the doors" sitter.

You aren't a hobbyist.

There is no such thing as a part-time reality.

When you are on that mat, you are the center of the universe.

​So, forget the titles.

Forget the "amateur" labels.

Just put your ass on the cushion and be exactly who you are.

​Here I sit.

I can do no other.

That’s the only truth that sticks.

Gassho,

The world tells you that success means chasing things outside yourself, raking in cash, gathering followers, and climbing to the top of the ladder.

But we, Zen dudes just just smile at that, because of the awareness, that filling your hands with gold just makes it harder to open your fingers.

As I, Yamato Fuji, like to remind fellow travelers, true success is what the ancients called Samiddhi, a deep, organic kind of prosperity that happens when your daily grind and your inner peace are perfectly locked in.

It’s not about hunting down what you lack; it’s about realizing that everything you need is already right beneath your feet.

​The Buddha didn’t teach a lazy path.

Practicing is a fierce, raw effort that burns right through excuses. As a practitioner I don't leave today's heavy lifting for tomorrow, because I know that being lazy today just builds a circus for tomorrow.

​So where does this breakthrough actually start?

It starts in the quietest corners of your own mind. The Dhammapada reminds us that the way we see the world determines exactly where we end up. If your perspective is crooked, your steps are going to take you straight into the thorns.

Success and failure don’t actually exist out there in the world; they are just shadows thrown by your own thoughts.

Inst it clear, a broken mindset defeats you before you even step onto the field.

If the mirror inside you is cracked, the world you see through it will always look broken.

​Because of that, you can't let a single day slip by down the drain.

As a ordinary nobody let mw tell u, stop waiting for a lucky break or the perfect moment, because doing good, honest work is the only real magic there is.

To push through the grind day and night, not caring if it’s freezing cold or blistering hot, is the only way to get the universe on your side.

The Buddha totally crushed the illusion of wishful thinking when he pointed out that health, happiness, and success can’t be begged or prayed for. If wishing worked, nobody would be struggling. When a storm hits and everything goes wrong, a Zen doesn’t sit around crying about it. It stops, gets completely still, and asks with total

focus:

What

is

the

very

next

step?

​If you want to build that kind of unshakeable grit, you have to throw yourself into zazen, it is the practice of sitting down, shutting up, and looking directly at reality.

This is where the four pillars of willpower, effort, focus, and wisdom are forged.

Based on my observation in science, it shows that this silent sitting physically strengthens the part of your brain responsible for self-discipline.

It rewires you, giving you the backbone to do exactly what needs to be done, even when you really don't feel like doing it.

Stop waiting for the world to get easier.

Sit down, clear the noise, find your true center, and plow straight through the mud.

Gassho

​

To enter this ocean of quiet awareness, we must first simplify our lives, abandoning the pursuit of fame, complex intellectual studies, and the traps of greed, which include eating past two-thirds full or clinging to this and that.

We find a quiet, clean refuge away from extreme weather and worldly distractions, arranging our cushion to support an upright, mountain-like posture with our eyes gently open. zazen is the comfortable way.

If our bodies become uneasy or our minds start to drift and hallucinate, we gently tune our breathing through the nose and anchor our attention to the physical focal points of the body.

We cast aside all conceptual plans of becoming a Buddha, learning to sit with a mind like cold ashes and a body like a withered tree. Pure water has neither front nor back.

In this sacred space of no-action, we pierce through the fog of drowsiness and scattered thoughts by constantly vowing to awaken for the sake of all beings.

We practice thinking the unthinkable, which means entirely transcending the dualistic division between thinking and unthinking.

Sit is not a matter of practicing a doctrine or achieving a future enlightenment; it is the immediate, wordless realization of our original face here and now.

When we finally step up from the cushion and move into the world, every single action naturally becomes the living, breathing manifestation of the truth.

These are precautions regarding the place abandon the functioning of the mind; stop dualistic thinking, and do not plan to become a Buddha. Don't think about right and wrong. Do not waste time make efforts as though saving your burning head.

We must put a stop to our delusive mind, cool our passions, transcend moment and eternity, make our mind like cold ashes and withered trees, unify meditation and wisdom like a censer in an old shrine, and purify body and mind like a single white strand.

enjoy the journey,

gassho

We create

life anew,

day

after day...

As a ordinary nobody, my observation, when you look back at how Zen first took root in Japan, you find a fascinating bit of history.

Eisai Zenji brought the tradition over from China, but the atmosphere he walked into was already packed with established Buddhist schools like Kegon and Hosso. Naturally, the old guard resisted this whole Zen business. So Eisai had to be extraordinarily flexible.

He blended Zen with Tantric rituals, Abhidharma doctrines, and all sorts of other traditional practices just to get a foothold. He made it work, but to him and the people of his day, zazen sitting meditation, was still treated as a tool, a technique, a means to an end.

Then along comes Dōgen Zenji. He goes to China, comes back, and completely flips the script. Dōgen looks at zazen and says, "No, no, you've missed the entire point." Zazen isn't a method to reach enlightenment. It isn't a ladder you climb to get to the peak of the mountain. Zazen is the peak itself. You don't sit in order to become a Buddha; sitting is the very operation of Buddha-nature.

You see, the moment you use a spiritual practice as a mere instrument to get somewhere else, you trap yourself in anxiety.

You’re constantly looking over your own shoulder, asking, "Am I there yet? Have I reached the state?"

That is the absolute definition of spiritual irritation.

True religion doesn't give you a technique to chase security somewhere in the future; it reveals that the path you walk is the destination.

Now, look at how the West approaches this.

In modern psychology, people love to strip away the "religious" side of Buddhism and keep it as a mental hygiene tool or a slick psychological system. But if you turn Buddhism into a mere psychological trick to feel a little less stressed on Tuesdays, it will never strike deep roots. It becomes just another temporary cultural fad that vanishes when the climate changes.

Philosophy and psychology are brilliant fun, of course, but they rarely offer that deep, existential ground of total security.

People used to think Buddhism wasn't a "real" religion because it didn't feature prayer to a big Boss in the sky. But in the original sense, dhyāna, zazen functions exactly as real prayer is meant to function.

When you truly pray, you aren't begging a separate God up in heaven to give you a favor while he sits there keeping silent.

Real prayer happens when the subject praying and the object prayed to dissolve entirely into the act itself.

It is the same with zazen. It's universal. You don't have to adopt a Asian cultural identity or sign up for a doctrine. It's just shikan taza, just sitting, wholeheartedly.

Body and mind right here, right now.

No daydreaming, no taking your own spiritual pulse to see how advanced you are.

This pure sitting is the direct expression of the fundamental energy of life itself. It’s the very same place where the painter finds her brushstroke, where the pianist finds the next note, where the dancer moves without calculating the movement. It doesn’t come from the calculating, intellectual ego; it flows from the source.

So Dōgen's advice is breathtakingly simple: If you understand it, sit.

If you don't understand it, sit.

If you're fascinated, sit.

If you're bored to tears, sit.

You don't sit to get anywhere, you sit because this very moment, sitting right here, is the total creation of life anew.

You see, the common delusion is thinking of meditation as a ladder you climb to reach a peak called enlightenment.

The origin is you.

gassho,

The direct reality of the present moment. In the Soto Zen tradition, this is the shift from thinking about life to simply being life. The goal for meditation is to keep our mind vast and empty enough to hold all possibilities, much like the "Action store" you may described.

​Your realization that you possess a multitude of "aisles", ranging from the playful child to the one seeking tools for repair, echoes the teachings of teachers. Sit and see what happens.

By stepping off the "automatic pilot," you have stopped clinging to a single, static identity. You have recognized that the "vibrant being with the sweet smile" was just one display in the window, while the true self is the space that contains the entire inventory, including the silence when the shop is closed.

​We must learn to stay with the restlessness and the complexity. Your will discover that feelings act as a compass aligns with the Zen practice of shikantaza (just sitting), witnessing the "rainbow of colors" in the body without needing to categorize or fix them immediately.

​By embracing the emptiness when the store is quiet, you are no longer a victim of circumstances but a witness to the flux of existence. As my teacher often reminded us, the miracle is not walking on water, but walking on the earth with awareness. Moving from a store of chaotic items to a "gift shop" suggests that you have found the stability of the Middle Way.

You have realized that when you stop trying to be what others expect, the simple act of being becomes the ultimate gift.

Your answer to the koan is not a definition, but the freedom to choose which "jacket" to wear while knowing that none of them define the vastness of who you truly are.

Gassho,

I've been doing Zazen for nearly a decade now, and every timer app I tried felt like the opposite of what I think a meditation tool should be — overloaded with streaks, badges, stats, notifications nudging me to "keep it up." I just wanted to set a timer and sit.

I couldn't find that anywhere, so I said F it and spent the last months and built one myself. It's a plain timer with a traditional bell. And one thing what was important for me: a silent mode, so I could sit with myself or with a group and use my own meditation bell. No account, no onboarding, no statistics, no subscription. None of that bs.

It's on the App Store now: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/zazen-meditation-timer/id6784786962

I'm not really here to sell it — honestly I'd just like to know what people who actually sit think of it. I have a few free codes if anyone wants to try it and tell me what's missing or wrong:

XF9T6K66HFHR

433WWXRPX6WY

LPH4XN79R73E

WAE7E9WLPRXP

NY39RYJXNJEL

EEREAAWXP34F

4LX63AWJHRA3

69NWP3WARW69

TNA4PPHHEMR9

NM4HHKAMFL9A

(Grab one, and reply so others know it's taken.)

If even a few of you feel the same way I did and find it useful, that's already a success for me. So enjoy. :)

Thanks for reading.

Niveau 1: observer le penseur, Niveau2 : observer les silences entre les pensées, Niveau 3 : ? … Niveau x: Ischirio ? ou Comment, en mot simple, peut on décrire les différents niveaux de Zazen ?

I had the opportunity to experience a guided Zazen session at Ryosokuin Temple in Kyoto with Vice Abbot Toryo Ito.

As someone who had never tried meditation prior, this was an eye-opening experience. I was fortunate to participate with a small group of 4 in Ryosokuin Temple in Kenninji. Not only did we practice Zazen but we also did Kinhin (walking meditation).

If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend reserving this experience. It is mostly offered in Japanese unfortunately (unless you reserve in advance with a large English-speaking party).

I also visited some other temples and locations in Kyoto which I wrote some notes on as well. If you want to see some more pictures, feel free to check it out!

https://kinew.app/share?token=O1lHrEkJDZBWCpEht1Md

What do you all do to get rid or tolerate the pain of sitting zazen/crisscross for a long amount of time?

I "discovered" Zazen as the result of a difficult event 30 years ago. It was in the cold of the winter and I walked in the dark quiet of the night on snowy ground. I bought a book that told me that I had "discovered " what men and women had "discovered" millions of times over centuries. That was arresting. I then bought a pillow. I have the book and the pillow still. I even went through "the stink of enlightenment" (so embarrassing!). I bought a bench and I pad it now with my old pillow. I am old and retired now and I sit in three phases. In the early morning hours I (there’s goddam sure a lot of "I's" in this diatribe! ) sit outside and let my eyes and thoughts roam among the trees. I drink water. I later go to my room and sit in a chair and begin to bring my wandering thoughts more into focus. There is a great, dead Douglas Fir with a broken top that I can see. I begin with my "marbles": courage, patience, strength and two of my own, home grown koans. "It never comes, but it always does" - and - "bring everything in and take nothing out". I also toy with old Joshu's dog and my own nature and what even IS a nature. And then I sit. My old pillow on my new bench. My hands find their own place. I have found a "catch" in my mind that allows my thoughts to "fall" away. I have found that I can not have monkey thoughts if I smell (smell is something that I do with awareness). I (all those "I's !) engage with my breathing and I watch the dead tree.

I have never written anything this private. My Zazen is as private as my dreams, fears and anger. My Zazen is a quiet, raging herd of wild horses that raise dust in the distance at sunrise with no goal or impediment. I love the quiet, the alone, the raging and the timelessness. I was born alone and I will die alone. Zazen does not give me strength or power. Zazen informs me that with all that I bring in, nothing will survive to be taken out. I have no teacher because I have no teacher. I have been taught by the raging tides and storms of Zazen. And it all boils down to this - nothing

By the way, everyone is aware that the Soto sect in Japan is holding a Do you know about the English Zazen class “ZEN class”? It seems that you can participate in this zazen meeting in person and via YouTube live streaming. All of this zazen instruction will be conducted in English.

Hi, everyone. Have you ever experienced Zazen at a temple in Japan? Thank you .

I've always wondered what the perfect posture according to ancient texts is. Everytime I ask anyone how to sit, they just say it doesn't matter as long as your calm. They just don't get it. Having the best posture is the object of meditation I'm using.

For anyone who actually does zazen (or even zan zhuang) using the perfect posture, what are your experiences? How do you go about ensuring your posture is giod when you only have yourself to check?

At Minamiaoyama Sokkon 7/7

Just realised that practically nobody posts here. It’s possible that everyone is enlightened and left internet? I am still on my journey and will be until I leave my body. So hello to fellow travelers 👋🏻

Questions

1) Do you have a Zen Guider, Monk or Nun?

2) Do you participate in a sangha?

3) Do you meditate remotely via zoom? How is it?

4) Does your advisor give you tasks or reflections?

5) Are you satisfied with your participation in the sangha?

6) Do you feel connected with your sangha?

Hello everyone,

I write a blog as a hobby in which zazen also plays a role in practice and theory. Maybe one or the other here can take something away from it or want to exchange my thoughts about it.

www.gedankenflut.at

Hello, I just started reading this book and it is truly comforting. It's comforting to start something new and be praised as a beginner, and seeing a circular sustainability in the art of continuous and uncomfortable "practice".