I feel a lot of gratitude to early Western Buddhists like Jack Kerouac, Alan Watts and Paul Reps who served the valuable function of translating Buddhist teaching into language and concepts that could be more easily understood by us. They could "talk the talk" and convey Buddhist teaching and the flavor of practice that lay behind it into language that helped bridge the religious and cultural gap between East and West. Now, several Buddhist generations later, our responsibility is to "walk the walk" by manifesting the teaching, bringing it into our bodies, bringing the teaching and practice into our lives – into our homes and offices – by embodying this practice personally.

Experiencing mind directly or seeing into the nature of mind has been a hallmark of Zen practice and realization. Other Buddhist traditions emphasize cultivating or transforming mind, but Zen emphasizes original mind as inherently complete and awake, so there is nothing we need to bring to it from outside and nothing we need to change about it. Rather than cultivating or transforming mind, in Zen our effort is to let go of everything that is obstructing or dulling the light of our inherent wisdom while focusing on the non-discursive awareness of the body that helps us circumvent discriminating consciousness.

Zen meditation is called zazen and the simplest, and maybe the most mature, form of zazen is shikan taza and it is often described as being in the present or "being present moment by moment." But Jakusho Kwong, a disciple of Suzuki Roshi who wrote No Beginning, No End, said, "... even that is not it. [Shikan taza] is being the moment." Shikan taza literally means "nothing but, precisely sitting" and it is often translated as "just sitting." Zazen and shikan taza emphasize the body and posture in a way that I haven’t found in other Buddhist traditions. Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, took a radical approach and reversed the view of mind as the agent of meditation and emphasized dropping the activity of the mind, and trusting practice and realization to the body.

Uchiyama Roshi’s teacher Sawaki Kodo, said, "The Buddha way is the faith that zazen posture is Buddha." As far as I know this emphasis both on posture as practice, and posture as enlightenment, is unique to Japanese Zen. Uchiyama Roshi talks about the practice of shikan taza as trusting everything to the posture of zazen. In Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Suzuki Roshi said, "...try always to keep the right posture, not only when you practice zazen, but in all your activities. ....The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is, itself, enlightenment....Our body and mind should not be wobbling or wandering about. In this posture there is no need to talk about the right state of mind. You already have it." He said, "This is the conclusion of Buddhism"

Even though it is pretty apparent that posture is emphasized in Zen meditation, I think many people still think of cross-legged sitting as the best position for the body to support the mind to stay awake and be concentrated in. But zazen isn’t for the purpose of developing concentration. Like any activity, it requires concentration, but it isn’t a technique for cultivating concentration. Instead of trying to put the body into the "right position" for the best physical and mental support, zazen practice or shikan taza is simply joining the bare-bones aliveness or energy of our being, before thinking is activated. This more fundamental consciousness is the consciousness that we have in common with everything, rather than our usual thinking mind that separates us from everything. Dogen used the term, the "true human body" to mean the living presence of one’s original nature.

In zazen, we practice physical stillness; and the forms are a means to extend the stillness of zazen into our activity. By forms I mean both the formalized movements we make, like bowing, as well as the way we handle and interact with things when we bring our living presence to them. The forms can bring us back to the aliveness we can only know in our concrete existence. I don’t know much about early Indian Buddhism, but meditation methods focusing on the impermanence of the body and the impurity of the body were and still are used as antidotes to sensual desire. But in Ch’an or Chinese Zen the attitude toward the body was different – the body was viewed as necessary for thorough practice. The 7th century Zen text, the Hsin Hsin Ming said, "If you wish to walk the course of the one vehicle, do not be repelled by the sense-realm. With no aversion to the sense-realm you become one with enlightenment." The Song of the Grass Roof Hut written by Sekito Kisen in the 8th century said, "If you want to know the undying person in the hut (or your True Nature), do not separate from this skin bag here and now." The forms enable us to embody the teaching so we can get it from an idea up in our heads down into our bodies and out into our lives. For example, when we gassho (a standing bow), I think we pretty naturally exhale and let go of our thinking as we bend forward. So, it is a physical action that brings a mental pause. When we finish the gassho, we pretty naturally come up with an openness of mind that has space to meet whatever we are facing.

Our practice here has a lot of detail for the way we do things such as serving and eating the zendo meal, the way we do service, and so on. These details help keep us engaged, conscientious and awake, so we are available to meet each activity as it occurs. But, in the midst of the details, if you find yourself feeling busy trying to keep up, or anxious about doing something wrong, then just be present. In practice, choose being present even if it means bumbling through what you are doing, just bumble through with presence making your state of mind your first priority.

I think that the traditional Japanese cultural arts such as Tea Ceremony, calligraphy and flower arranging tend to be associated with Japanese temple life and monastic practice not just because temple life takes place within traditional culture, but because to a large extent, these are practiced in a nonverbal, concentrated setting with an emphasis on stillness of mind within the activity.

One of my favorite stories about traditional Japanese culture is about a potter whose family had been highly renowned potters for generations, and the potter worked with his apprentice without giving much verbal instruction. The apprentice learned by observing the master, and his task was to learn how to mix the clay in the same manner that had been used and valued for generations so that eventually he would be able to pass it on. The apprentice worked mixing the clay, experimenting with different amounts of this and that. When he thought he found the right combination, he went and told his master who replied, "No," and this happened a number of times. No matter what the apprentice came up with, and even when he finally found the right formula, he was still told "No." The apprentice had to know so thoroughly that the formula he had was right, that even when he was told he was wrong, he knew unquestionably that he had the right combination of ingredients.

This way of nonverbal teaching, that throws us back on self-authentication arising from our own experience, was used as an example of how Soto Zen practice was taught in Japan. However, self-authentication almost always takes place in the context of working closely with a teacher. Learning in traditional Japanese culture, has been described as "80% observation and 20% instruction" which may be why we spend so much time in zazen, getting to know our own minds, doing the practice ourselves, with so little verbal instruction.

Zen practice is characterized by whole-heartedness, doing one thing at a time and doing it with our whole body and mind, surrendering our body and mind to our present activity. Jakusho Kwong in talking about whole-heartedness said, "When we pick up garbage, we pick it up one hundred percent." "...we have to understand that we are also picking up the garbage inside our own minds." He said, "The words outside and inside are two ways of describing one thing. Practicing in this way....the self becomes the activity...When we pick up garbage, everything is being picked up." When we bring our body and mind to an activity, our whole life is that activity at that point in time.

The San Francisco Zen Center’s monastery, Tassajara, is located in a national wilderness area deep in a mountain valley with limited access to electricity. The cabins have toilets and sinks with cold running water, so the bathing is done at a bathhouse which is heated by hot sulfur springs, a little way up-stream from the main part of camp. There is an altar at the entrance to the bathhouse where, before entering, the practice is to recite the verse: With all beings, I wash body and mind, Pure and shining, Within and without. This suggests that as we bathe our body, we are bathing consciousness as well, so inside and outside are not treated as separate. Another way to practice while bathing is to do it as if you were bathing Buddha, treat your own body as Buddha. There is a well-known saying in Zen, "this very mind, just this is Buddha," but this very body is also Buddha. When we bathe our body as if we were bathing Buddha, our mind is also refreshed.

The word "intimate" is used a lot in Zen stories and the Chinese character has several meanings. One is a feeling of familiarity and compassion like a parent has towards a child; another meaning is almost no separation or to almost be one; and another is to experience something directly or in a non-dual manner. I think this can go in two directions. One is to be intimate with our original nature or essence of mind. The other is to know the truth of non-separation between us and everything else, by experiencing things directly, without mediating, judging or measuring our experience. I think one indication that this is happening is when we stop reviewing or re-playing in our minds what we have said or done. By letting go of imagining how others perceive us, we let go of "self" consciousness which gives the feeling of separation. Being intimate with our own True Nature is the same as being intimate with the True Nature of all things.

Zazen aims at letting go of thinking which means we don’t need to force out thoughts or to try to hold the mind empty. Just let go and allow yourself to wake up. Surrender your ideas, surrender your desires and expectations, surrender everything to zazen and listen to the body. Just sit, listening to the stillness within and without.

I want to end with a passage by the Chinese Zen Master, Hong-zhi said, "[The empty field of original mind] cannot be cultivated or proven. From the beginning it is altogether complete, undefiled and clear down to the bottom."