This selection takes us into deeper steps of preparation to sit with attention to breathing clearly spelled out. Rather than following the breath into the abdomen and back out, Chih I has us breathe into every pore and out to the periphery of our entire body.

No matter how many years we have practiced, or how many weeks, it is always refreshing to return to the beginning and look at meditation as if we are just being introduced to it. We can all benefit from a return to beginner’s mind.

At times when you read about what it takes to break through our illusions, it can feel a bit overwhelming. The intensity and steadfastness of the wise ones of old is humbling when we look clearly at our own efforts; one thing we must remember, though, is not to compare ourselves to others, but rather allow the stories to inspire us to go further.

I have often thought that the term Middle Way truly gives us a guideline for practice without a lot of extra expounding needed. Think about the sense of balance we have in certain activities – too far to either side can lead to a fall literally! So we do use this sense of balance in daily life.

It is quite a treasure to find a new piece in translation and one full of terms that seem to predate the usual ones we find in Buddhism and Zen.  In bringing Buddhism to new lands, it only seems natural that the earlier understanding of the Way, Taoism in this case in China, would find a way to make sense of the new teachings as similar to their native teachings of the Way.

No matter who the teacher is we need to have a balance between what they say that is clearly delivered and what can tend to cloud things over a bit.  To ascribe anything to nirvana is saying too much as it falls into “as soon as you try to explain things, the true meaning is lost.”

Wherever we find ourselves along the Way we can always find a handhold in these writings, however meager it may seem.  No one can say what phrase, which practice, what sound in Nature may cause a sudden awakening which is in reality, just a beginning.

No matter how we approach meditation on the cushion or in life, there is this lingering sense of so much “self” still coloring so much of our realities.

As beginners, to find our centered posture in sitting meditation we move side to side slowly and then back and forth,  naturally coming to know our center.  With practice, those movements are dropped, and we are familiar with the centered posture.  It is a technique we use at first and then can discard.