Zen is often misunderstood because it is so arbitrary. Zen has no theory. It is an inner knowing for which there is no stated dogma. You know because you know. You can’t be told what an idea is or have it explained to you. You have to arrive at the knowing on your own. So the only way to teach Zen is to point the student in its direction. The only way to learn Zen is to be open to truth. This is so hard because we tend to keep our focus locked on the surface of our experience and we ignore the much more significant subtext of life.
The old explanation of Zen goes like this: it’s like a finger pointing to the moon. Stare at the finger and you’ll miss all of this heavenly glory. Another similar explanation suggests that the bad student is like a dog. The master throws it a stick but the dog fixes its gaze on the masters hand. The master points in the direction the stick has gone. But the dog can’t break its trance on the master’s hand. And it never finds the stick.
I became most interested in Zen as a result of my latest spiritual journey which lead me to the book, “The Zen Teachings of Jesus” by Kenneth S. Leong. In this book, Leong explains the key elements of Zen which are: presence, ordinariness, zest, insight, wu-wei (doing nothing), gentleness, freedom, simplicity, paradoxity, right-brain orientation, and soulfulness. I realized that these were the things that were the hardest to sustain in my life. So I began a relentless pursuit of Zen, an everyday form of spirituality.
I can’t really tell you how to do this. I can only point you in the direction I have traveled and the direction I have before me. The guides I have used for my travel so far have been Kenneth S. Leong’s book, ‘The Zen Teachings of Jesus,” “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle, “Tao Te Ching” by Lao-tzu, and “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller. There have been several others but these seem to be the ones that I return to over and over.
And I have a few guides for the direction ahead. Look for the underlying beauty in everything. “Beauty and ugliness arise together.” In any situation do what is required in the situation without making it something it isn’t. Accomplish tasks through either acceptance, enjoyment, or enthusiasm. Tune into the spiritual language of music, poetry and art. Lose the titles and false identities and self-service and truly be yourself. “To find your true self you have to first lose your self.”
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