Categories: Justin Stone: In His Words
The Zen Way (June 2001)
By: Justin Stone
The Zen Way! The Zen Way!
What is the meaning of
The Zen Way?
“Zen” means meditation, but Zen sitting is Zazen —
It is not like Indian meditation.
How define the practice of Zen?
There are no guidelines.
“Void” means “Emptiness,”
But Void is full of rivers, trees, and moonlight.
“Impermanent” — yes!
“Everlasting” — yes!
How reconcile such opposites?
Many are one but one equals many.
What meets the eye
is not what meets the heart.
A life of loneliness —
“aloneness,” really —
Can be full and meaningful.
But, in the end
What is meaningful?
Do we look for satisfaction
Or do we seek to avoid suffering?
Can we have both?
Can we live with neither?
Bodhidharma came from the West
But, if he had continued,
He would have been in the West again.
Life contracts and expands
Everything appears circular and cyclical.
Who ordered it this way?
Can we be thankful
With no thing to be thankful for?
– Justin Stone
Originally appeared in: June 2001